Psychic Power in Prea 



J. Spencer Kennard ; D.D. 




Book ! 

Copyright^?.- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 



PSYCHIC POWER 



IN 



PREACHING 



BY 



J. SPENCER KENNARD, D.D. 



v 



Edited with Memoir 

by his son 

Joseph Spencer Kennard 



Philadelphia 
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 

103-105 South Fifteenth St. 



J3< 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAY, 14 1901 

COPYRIGHT ENTRY 

CLASS ^"XXc. N». 
COPY 3. 



Copyright, iqoi, by 
George W. Jacobs & Co. 






CONTENTS 

PAGE 

In Memoriam vii 

I. A Pulpit of Power the Need oe the Times . . i 

II. Psychic Power in Preaching 15 

HI. The Personal Factor in Preaching 29 

IV. Commanding the Attention 47 

V. The Psychology of Style 65 

VL The Psychology of Emotion and Will .... 81 

VII. The Sermon in Action 99 

VIII. Sympathy an Element of Psychic Force ... 115 
IX. The Psychic Power of Authority and Love . 131 
X. The Psychic Power of the Holy Spirit ... 147 - 
XI. Unrealized Ideals 173 



Un flDemoriam* 



In fIDemoriam* 

IN the world of literature, of politics, of government, 
or of finance, when a man has become famous, 

has gained applause, has risen and overtopped his 
fellows and has become a leader, ruler or king, how 
the world is impressed with his personality, how filled 
with comment at his passing from this life to that 
which is beyond the grave ! Yet when he is weighed 
there, in the balances of God, how small may be his 
soul, how pitiful appear his character ! 

Judged even by the world's standard, Dr. Kennard 
was a distinguished man. As a pulpit-orator, as the 
loved pastor of prominent city churches, as an earn- 
est patriot, as a writer, as an evangelist, winning 
souls; his name is known, his reputation is estab- 
lished. This memoir, however, is not a panegyric. It 
purposes to give, very simply and very briefly, the 
record of a heart made great by goodness. It is a 
tribute to a life filled with noble purpose and radiating 
blessing upon his fellow-men. It is just one more 
testimony to the truth of God's word that " they that 
be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, 
and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars 
for ever and ever. ' ' 

Because the life and work of this man so eminently 
exemplified this wisdom and brightened his crown 
with so many stars, a short account of that life and 
work should be the most valuable chapter in a book 

(vii) 



viii IN MEMORIAM. 

whose aim and purpose is to help those who would 
win souls. 

Joseph Spencer Kennard was born in Philadelphia, 
September 24, 1833. There his ancestors had lived 
from before the days of Penn. They had occupied 
prominent positions in the Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey Colonies, and in the war of the Revolution they 
were leaders of men and patriots. In his long ministry in 
Philadelphia his father, Joseph Hugg Kennard, D.D., 
an ambassador of heaven, was greatly honored of 
God and men. There his son, Joseph Spencer, was 
dedicated to the Lord at the time of his birth. Under 
the care of parents who were remarkable for their 
strong spiritual nature, he developed a fine inward 
sensibility, which, grafted on an ardent temperament, 
gave to his whole life among men an undertone caught 
up in his musings upon the deep mysteries of Man and 
Eternity and God : an undertone now joyous, anon 
sad ; as, indeed, the contemplative soul is alternately 
lifted to sunlit heights and depressed to the abysses. 

At the age of twelve years he experienced conver- 
sion, and received baptism at his father's hands in 
the Tenth Baptist Church, Philadelphia. At school 
this profession of religion brought upon him ridi- 
cule from some of his fellows there ; but his bright, 
sunny disposition, springing from a singularly beauti- 
ful soul, his uncompromising moral earnestness, needed 
no defense against their taunts. He was a natural 
orator, having a clear, powerful and perfectly modu- 
lated voice, graceful movements, a good command of 
language and a certain impetuousness of delivery 



IN MEMORIAM. IX 

which visibly proceeded from inward conviction. This 
boy was father of the man. While he was a pupil in 
the Philadelphia High School he, with seven fellow- 
students, who, like himself at that time, were looking 
forward to a career in the I,aw, formed the Forensic 
Society. Among the first members of this society were 
several youths who afterward rose to eminence in vari- 
ous callings : Judge James T. Mitchell, of Philadel- 
phia ; William T. Richards, the marine painter ; 
Frank Stockton, the novelist, and George Reshe. As 
a tribute to his high scholarship and character on 
graduating from the High School he was chosen vale- 
dictorian, both by vote of his class and desire of his 
teachers. 

He then entered L,ewisburg (now Bucknell) Uni- 
versity, in the Senior Class. Shortly after entering 
he decided to fit himself for a career in the ministry of 
the Gospel. Through all his life thereafter there 
remained vivid in his mind the memory of certain 
passages of his spiritual experience in the retirement 
of his closet at the University, in which he was favored 
with sensible manifestations of the Divine Presence. 
The youth had in these Divine visitations assurance, 
which he never lost and never forfeited, that he was 
chosen to be a Vessel of Election and a messenger 
from God to the souls of men. That assurance, that 
conviction, was as deeply and as firmly rooted then 
and thenceforth in his consciousness as the sense of 
his own being ; it was part of himself ; nay, it was the 
principle and prime-motor of his life, of his personality ; 
indeed, this is a Man sent of God, or he is naught ! 



X IN MKMORIAM. 

He is still a youth, a novice ; but already he 
recognizes in its full measure the grandeur and the 
holiness of his vocation. In a letter to his mother, 
from I^ewisburg, he writes : 

I was sitting in my study, and I know not how it 
was, but I am sure that God has visited me. My soul 
was baptized in the glory of God. I was thinking on 
prayer, on intimate communion with Him, and of 
the glory of the redemption which Christ has pur- 
chased ; the completeness of the righteousness with 
which sinners such as I am are invested in Christ ; the 
reality of the grace of God in Christ ; the reality of 
the promises ; the certainty of their fulfillment ; the 
amazing, the overwhelming reality of my being per- 
mitted to come right into the presence of the great 
God : so near, — so near and to meet smiles — only 
smiles and arms of love extended to me. The three 
Blessed ones seemed to stand around, inviting my 
petitions. The Father, from whom I have gone like a 
prodigal ; the Saviour, whom I have crucified, and the 
Holy Spirit, whom I have grieved. Why those floods 
of joy ? I heard the precious words, " Ask what thou 
wilt." "O, then, give me love for souls." This is 
what I want. Oh, Saviour, who died for sinners ! 
Oh, Father, that would not that any should perish ! 
Oh, Spirit of Grace, who loveth to lead souls to 
heaven, give me this burning, impelling love for souls, 
lost souls! 

Again he writes: 

When I hear of my friends being instrumental 
in the conversion of sinners it makes me long to be 
engaged in the blessed work ; I am impatient to be 
about my Master's work ; yet, alas ! how unfit I am ! 
My constant prayer is that God will make me an in- 
strument for some good. 



IN MEMORIAM. XI 

He entered Princeton Seminary in 1854, and re- 
mained there two years. He viewed the time he 
was to spend in the seminary as a season for diligent 
study of the Sacred Sciences, and of the art of Apos- 
tolical preaching, as also for disciplining his own will 
to make it in all things obedient to God's will, and 
himself a fit instrument to God's hand for the work of 
the ministry. A letter written by him to his mother 
about this time shows that he was already engaged in 
the study of the same problem which occupied his 
mind and his pen up to the close of his life — the Phi- 
losophy of Preaching — touching which this present 
volume is proof that he studied that problem to some 
purpose. But the letter shows that he was at the 
same time contemplating the whole field of evangeli- 
cal labor with a view to discover wherein the defenses 
of the Church most needed strengthening. Mean- 
while his own spiritual growth must not be neglected, 
and he searches his heart to find out what hindrances 
might there exist to the inflow of God's grace for his 
own sanctification and for the salvation of souls. He 
writes: 

Since I have been here my ideas in regard to what 
is eminently desirable in the education of a minister 
' ' that needeth not be ashamed ' ' have been enlarged, 
so that I have resolved to make myself master of the 
philosophy of the composition and delivery of ser- 
mons, and also to make myself acquainted thoroughly 
with Biblical and Ecclesiastical history in all its de- 
partments, and with Hebrew and Greek Criticisms, so 
as to be able to meet and refute, if circumstances 
require, the cavils of learned skeptics. 



Xll IN MEMORIAM. 

I have been reading in the letters and journal of 
Henry Martyn, and the example of that holy man has 
been like a great light to make my own darkness visi- 
ble. I think my heart has been in some degree hum- 
bled — for whereof have I to boast ? Were I the holi- 
est of God's creatures, it would be surely of grace. I 
enjoy near access to God at the throne of grace ; I 
feel reluctant to leave the mercy seat. God's word 
has an especial interest for me. Whenever I read its 
pages I feel a thrill of delight, and when I meditate 
on its precious words of encouragement and love, so 
peculiarly adapted to my condition, my heart is melted 
in tenderness, and a joy such as I experienced when 
first I realized the forgiveness of sin, only a sublimer 
and purer joy, reigns in my heart. 

My plan of living, for the most part, is this: I 
rise before light, from half-past four o'clock to six ; I 
spend some time in study and one-half hour in devo- 
tion, which is very sweet to my soul. Then I take a 
walk of about two miles. In my walk I select some 
subject for meditation, and I find this very profitable. 
I return to breakfast ; after breakfast, study until reci- 
tations. The intervening time until dinner I spend 
in devotion. The afternoon I spend in the prepara- 
tion and recitation of Homiletics and Greek exegesis. 
Evening chapel prayers follow immediately the recita- 
tions. After supper I generally spend in some prayer 
meeting, or committee, or society. 

Oh that God would enable me, in future, to keep 
constantly in view the one and only object of all my 
study and all my labors, His glory and the salvation 
of souls! 

Oh, come, thou mighty wind ; come, Holy Spirit, 
and waft me onward and higher, and still higher, till 
my entire self shall be absorbed in the glory of the Sun 
of Righteousness! I^ike Him, to be meek and lowly ; 
like Him, to be crucified to the world ; like Him, if 



IN MEMORIAM. Xlll 

need be, crucified for the world ; like Him, to weep 
for sinners ; like Him, to say," not my will, O Father, 
but thine be done." Oh! to have no thought but 
' ' Christ Crucified ! ' ' To have no ambition but to 
win souls to heaven ! 

Ah ! my dear mother, I feel that prayers, and 
strong cryings, and tears, and fastings, and abase- 
ment, and self -mortification, and self-examination, 
and fierce conflicts with myself and the buffetings of 
satan, all, all ! are not too great a price to pay for such 
glorious transformation — likeness to Jesus. 

So eagerly did he pursue his studies in the sem- 
inary that his health failed him, and for a while 
he traveled in Canada, accompanied by his friend, 
De Witt Taylor. Having been licensed to preach, he 
made a missionary tour as agent of the American Sun- 
day School Union, preaching and founding Sunday 
Schools. He also, while at the seminary, for some 
time preached in the Bordentown (N. J.) Baptist 
Church. In 1856, when his course of studies was 
completed, he received calls from two churches, one 
from the First Germantown Church, Philadelphia ; 
the other from the Bridgeton (N. J.) Baptist Church ; 
this he decided to accept, aud December 23, 1856, in 
the Tenth Baptist Church, Philadelphia, of which his 
father was pastor, he was ordained to the Gospel min- 
istry, and to that charge. Thus did he enter on his 
labors, which through a long life were never inter- 
mitted save for necessary rest. 

It was in Bridgeton that he first met his future wife, 
Nancy Reed Jeffers, whom he married in 1858. She 
was the youngest of a family of beautiful girls, and 



XIV IN MBMORIAM. 

was endowed with every gift and grace that could 
make her the meet life-companion and helper of a min- 
ister of the Gospel ; in his labors he was ever sustained 
by her counsel, as well as by her active cooperation. 

With a deep sense of the responsibilities of his 
office and of the importance of redeeming the time, he 
went about his labors in this his first pastoral field. 
In his journal of that time he is seen to be constantly 
struggling with what he calls his besetting sin, waste 
of time ; though in addition to the duties of his 
Bridgeton pastorate, he imposed upon himself the bur- 
den of mission labors at places a considerable distance 
from the town. At one of these outlying stations he 
conducted meetings almost every night for two or 
three months. In Bridgeton he set on foot sundry 
movements that went beyond the conventional limits 
of his Baptist pastorate, and were non-sectarian or 
inter-denominational. Thus, he organized a Bridgeton 
branch of the Young Men's Christian Association ; he 
induced the churches to join in weekly union prayer 
meetings ; once he prevailed upon the inhabitants of 
the town to give up to prayer and fasting one whole 
day ; on that day every place of business in Bridgeton 
was closed, and the city was, so to speak, on its knees. 
A memorable revival of religion followed. Hardly less 
worthy of note was another innovation wrought by the 
young minister — namely, that of ministers of different 
denominations uniting in meeting at their respective 
homes for social converse. And it was he that founded 
the Bridgeton Conference of Baptist Ministers. 

He stayed three years in Bridgeton, and there his 



IN MEMORIAM. XV 

eldest son and namesake was born. In September, 
1859, having resigned that pastorate, he assumed the 
charge of the B Street Baptist Church, Washington 
City. 

The change from the quiet of an inland town to 
the turmoil of the national capital was revolutionary. 
John Brown's raid occurred between Mr. Kennard's 
acceptance of the call and his removal. If the whole 
country was electrified with suppressed excitement, 
Washington was the storm centre, and one could 
scarcely mention the dangerous topic without causing 
an ominous flash. The spiritual atmosphere was cold. 
People were more anxious about the condition of the 
country than the state of the church. At K Street, as 
in many other churches, there were many Southern- 
ers, and a strong Southern sentiment before the elec- 
tion of Lincoln. Truly, there were lions in the path 
of the loyal j~oung minister. He and his charming 
wife were received with a generous welcome by ' ' Old 
Washington" society. He was asked to accept the 
nomination for Chaplain of the House of Representa- 
tives, an honor which he declined on account of the 
necessary electioneering. Ushered into the sophisti- 
cated life of a great city, his first battle was in 
the cause of Temperance. In the years before the 
"Women's Temperance Crusade" only a few inde- 
pendent and hardy souls dreamed of advocating total 
abstinence, but Kennard and his wife were among the 
few. In writing to his father during those early days 
he says : 

I shall find it painful to maintain my principles 



Xvi IN MKMORIAM. 

in regard to temperance here. The fact is, they have 
wine everywhere you go, and everybody drinks. The 
most sober and excellent members of the church, dea- 
cons included, think nothing of it. They think it 

strange I do not drink, as did without hesitation, 

and expressed himself as doing it because we ought to 
enjoy all the good things which our Heavenly Father 
gives us, and be grateful for them. Since I have come 

has not drunk at any of the companies where we 

have been together. I must and will lift up my voice 
against it. Every day I become more firm and deter- 
mined in my principles. I have told them plainly, 
though kindly, that I am, from the crown of my head 
to the soles of my feet, an out-and-out temperance 
man ; that I am utterly opposed to the drinking prac- 
tices of society. 

In the early days of his ministry he found one 
of his most loved and valued friends in the Hon. 
Amos Kendall (Jackson's Postmaster- General), one of 
Washington's most distinguished citizens. The grand 
old man was immediately attracted by the young 
fellow of twenty-six, to whom life was at once so beau- 
tiful and so solemn. He was not a member of the 
church, but contributed largely to its support, and 
considered the young minister his special protegi. 
In their correspondence of later years Mr. Kendall's 
letters were always characterized by a fatherly solici- 
tude, which was not hidden by his old-fashioned, dig- 
nified reserve. 

After the installation of President I^incoln there 
was an exodus of Southerners from the city, the B 
Street Church losing some of its strongest supporters. 

The news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached 



IN MKMORIAM. Xvil 

Washington on a Sunday just before the hour of the 
morning service. This was war ! The city was dazed 
and frightened ; but to one man the immediate duty 
seemed perfectly direct and plain ; he determined to 
declare his position that morning. At the close of the 
services the pastor of the B Street Church spoke of 
the surrender, and urged his church to rally to the 
support of the government. After a moment of 
silence, the Southerners left their seats and went out. 

What with the general turmoil in the city, what 
with the falling away of the Southern membership, the 
resources of the church were desperately impaired ; it 
was unable to pay the pastor's salary, yet never was 
need of a shepherd more pressing. Mr. Kennard 
applied in May for a position in the Treasury Depart- 
ment, which he immediately obtained. For a number 
of months he spent six hours a day signing Treasury 
notes, and gave the remaining hours to the work of 
the church, visiting the sick and attending funerals 
after four in the afternoon. While the church was 
united in love of the pastor, sectional feeling was too 
strong to be subdued or ignored. After a meeting, in 
which a majority refused to receive Northerners as 
members of the church, he sorrowfully resigned his 
charge. Soon after his resignation a large number of 
the loyal members went out and formed a new church. 

The pastorship was offered to Mr. Kennard, but 
his health was so much impaired that he could not 
accept the charge, though he agreed to serve tem- 
porarily. 

But the clash of arms had an echo in the new 



XV111 IN MEMO RI AM. 

church. In the Union prayer meeting, too, there was 
so much hesitation about mentioning the great ques- 
tion of the day that Mr. Kennard wrote the leaders 
that he could not have any part in the services unless 
he were free to ' ' pray for the country. ' ' He was often 
on the field of battle with the Christian Commission, 
and ministered to the sick and dying soldiers. At 
home he was continually brought face to face with the 
horrors of war. At last, in October, he left the scene 
of conflict for New England, and settled in Woburn, 
Massachusetts. 

The church at Woburn was strong, spiritual, 
peaceful and united, and after the turmoil and anxieties 
of his Washington pastorate, Mr. Kennard was greatly 
cheered by the abundant fruits of his labors there. 
Here his extraordinary spiritual force and sweet per- 
suasiveness won all hearts, and through hearts his 
words found access to souls. Soon after his settle- 
ment in the town a revival in the church resulted in a 
great harvest of converts. 

The pastor records in his Journal, ''never so 
happy and never so much real satisfaction in my 
work." With the exception of an occasional visit 
from neighboring pastors, he carried on the work 
alone. From Mr. Kendall he received frequent reports 
of the new Calvary Church, in Washington, estab- 
lished by Mr. Kennard. To-day the church stands 
as a beautiful memorial of the courage of that little 
Gideon's band, as well as of the generosity of Amos 
Kendall. 

While in the midst of his labors in Woburn, Mr. 



IN MEMORIAM. XIX 

Kennard received what he considered an imperative 
call to serve his country in the army. The nation was 
passing through her darkest hours. Volunteers were 
no longer ready to fill the breaches made by disastrous 
battles. The draft raised a tempest of indignation, 
of which the riots in New York were only a partial 
expression. Mr. Kennard attended many public meet- 
ings, and spoke earnestly in behalf of the government. 
His eloquence had much effect in changing the current 
of popular feeling, and his words were emphasized 
by the news that he himself had been drafted. The 
people protested, but he insisted upon going to the 
front. As he had said, ' ' Every man should consider 
the draft the call of God to service." This was the 
occasion of a beautiful act of self-sacrifice on the part 
of one of the members of his church, who presented 
himself at the pastor's study early on the morning after 
the news had been received. ' ' Pastor, ' ' he said, ' ' you 
must not go. Your work here is too important. My wife 
and I have been praying over this matter all night, 
and I have decided to go in your stead." A little 
later the venerable Deacon Converse, who had been 
confined to the house for many months, appeared at 
the door and repeated, ' ' Pastor, you cannot go. I will 
send a substitute in your stead. ' ' But though his heart 
was deeply touched by their devotion, the pastor's res- 
olution was unshaken. When the time arrived for the 
physical examination he set out for Lawrence. In the 
evening a crestfallen ' ' conscript ' ' came home with 
patriotism as strong as ever, but somewhat less buoy- 
ant. Kennard had been refused on account of " deli- 



XX IN MBMORIAM. 

cacy of physical organization." In the words of the 
physician, ' ' he might last three months, but not longer, 
and would cost the government more than he was 
worth." 

The climate of Woburn was severe, and each winter 
he seemed less able to withstand its rigors. After a 
vacation to recuperate his health, he returned to his 
field in Woburn and renewed his pastoral work, but 
continued to suffer with his throat. He was urged by 
his physician and family to go to a milder climate, 
and in September he accepted a call to Calvary 
Church, of Albany, and in December became its pas- 
tor. The pastorate in Albany was one of unalloyed 
happiness. Almost immediately after his settlement 
there the church received a great outpouring of the 
Holy Spirit, and many souls were brought to Christ. 
Ninety-six were baptized that winter. The church 
also received large additions by letter, and its strength 
was nearly doubled. 

Two of Mr. Kennard' s old friends had followed him 
to Albany — De Witt Taylor, the friend of his boy- 
hood and youth, and John B. Mulford, his brother-in- 
law, who became superintendent of the Sunday 
School. 

That same summer his father, Dr. Joseph Hugg 
Kennard, pastor of the Tenth Baptist Church, Phila- 
delphia, who had been its pastor since its formation, 
in 1838, died. For his successor the "Old Tenth" 
chose, as of course, the son. Only sixteen months 
had Mr. Kennard been pastor of the Albany church, 
but already he was held fast to it by many spiritual 



IN MKMORIAM. XXI 

ties, and the alternative of severing these or of reject- 
ing the affectionate call of his beloved father's children 
in Christ was for him an exquisitely painful trial. 
The Albany church protested against his leaving, and 
only after repeated appeals from their pastor would 
they consent to accept his resignation. The long-cher- 
ished wish and hope of his father and the kindly, affec- 
tionate invitation of the Philadelphia church prevailed. 
The ' ' Old Tenth, ' ' under the ministry of the elder 
Dr. Kennard, was a church ever alive, always "in 
revival " ; its spiritual life never intermitted, but was 
always as a strong, steady flame. His son was not 
the man to suffer the sacred fire to die out; it glowed 
and flamed in his own soul; and thence it radiated 
through the church and beyond the bounds of the 
church, even into the outer darkness of vagrancy and 
godlessness. Being touched by the forlorn condition 
of the human wastrels issuing from the station-houses 
on Sunday mornings, with no place to turn to but the 
drink-shops, Mr. Kennard proposed to his members 
to invite them to a " Sunday Breakfast." A hall was 
opened, where a hot breakfast was served each Sunday 
morning to a forlorn company gathered from the 
various station-houses. After the poor fellows had 
been warmed and fed, they were glad to listen to the 
preaching of the Gospel in the meeting which fol- 
lowed. Many of these men were converted, many 
were saved from the curse of intemperance; and, with 
some interruptions, the Sunday breakfasts have been 
continued ever since that time, and are one of Phila- 
delphia's institutions to-day. 



XX11 IN MEMORIAM. 

As the city was at this time growing rapidly 
toward the northwest, Mr. Kennard realized the need 
of church extension in that direction, and opened a mis- 
sion Sunday School, to which was given the name of 
' ' The Kennard Mission. ' ' From this lowly beginning 
sprung what is now one of the most notable institu- 
tional churches in America — Grace Church, known as 
"The Temple," with its college, hospital and other 
annexes — a noble monument to the pastoral zeal, the 
indomitable enterprise and the administrative ability 
of Dr. Russell H. Conwell. 

After this Dr. Kennard was for five years pastor 
of the Pilgrim Church, in New York City, and in that 
period his labors were rewarded with conversions to 
the number of over three hundred. When, in 1875, 
Mr. Moody was holding that wonderful series of 
meetings at the Hippodrome, Dr. Kennard was his 
efficient co-laborer. He and his wife were constantly at 
work in the inquiry room; and in the auditorium itself 
his exhortations and his prayers were blessed by the 
conversion of souls. Of all those who spoke, no voice 
surpassed his in the power of reaching the utmost 
corners of the hall. 

At the time of Mr. Kennard' s residence in New 
York the Baptist denomination was passing through a 
very critical period in its history. Owing to the great 
intellectual activity of the past century, there has been 
a growing tendency to question all religious creeds. 
No branch of the church has been free from the strug- 
gle between the iconoclasts on the one hand, who 
attacked long established doctrines and usages, and 



IN MKMORIAM. XX111 

the conservatives on the other, who believed them- 
selves defenders of the faith. The Baptists have 
suffered less than others from these contentions owing 
to their cardinal doctrine of the right of private judg- 
ment. In the seventies, however, quite a storm was 
raised over the communion question. The conserva- 
tive element in the church suddenly awakened to the 
fact that among the younger ministers was a growing 
disposition to forsake the time-honored custom of 
limiting the invitation to the L,ord's Supper to " mem- 
bers of the churches of the same faith and order. ' ' 
The theological position of the Baptists on the subject 
of " believer's baptism " and immersion was never dis- 
puted; but the corollary that only such "baptized" 
believers were to be admitted to communion at the 
Lord's Table, thus depriving them of fellowship with 
Christians of other denominations, found many dis- 
senters. The Church in England had always taken a 
liberal view of the subject, and a small section of the 
denomination in America was distinguished by the 
title ' ' Freewill Baptists, ' ' because of its open Com- 
munion position ; but such had not been the general 
feeling in this country. The merits of the discussion 
have no place in this sketch. Neither party to the 
controversy was willing to yield in a matter of con- 
science. A number of valuable men left the denomi- 
nation, and there was danger of an irreconcilable 
division in the ranks. 

But the day was saved by the wisdom and courage 
of a few men who could see both sides and were not 
afraid to stand for justice and liberty as against party 



XXIV IN MEMORIAM. 

feeling. Dr. A. J. Gordon, Dr. Kennard, Dr. Neale 
and a few others believed that the Baptist doctrine of 
soul liberty was of greater importance than any dogma 
concerning the order of the sacraments, however 
logically derived. While unflinchingly loyal to the 
faith of the Fathers, they set themselves determinedly 
against the spirit of ecclesiarchical coercion then ram- 
pant. At no small cost to themselves, they kept firm 
hold of the denominational helm until the ship should 
right herself. The contest was long and bitter. The 
question then at issue was not settled. It probably 
will remain a subject for discussion for many years to 
come, but it will never again become a matter of 
church discipline or threaten the solidarity of the 
denomination. 

The strong reaction of his sensitive spirit after the 
theological controversy resulted in great nervous ex- 
haustion. This was increased by partial sunstroke, 
and his apparently failing health caused anxiety to 
his family. 

In August, 1878, his health being restored, he 
accepted a call from the Central Square Baptist 
Church, East Boston, and held that charge for three 
years, during which he devoted much of his time to 
the study, critical and historical, of Buddhism and 
other Oriental religions: one essay of his, of consider- 
able compass, upon the life of Buddha, won favorable 
notice among European as well as American scholars. 
In this period, also, it was that he commenced a series 
of articles on Pulpit Eloquence, out of which grew, or 
rather which grew into, the present treatise. In 



IN MEMORIAM. XXV 

recognition of these valuable contributions to the 
sacred sciences and literature of theology, pure and 
applied, Madison (now Colgate) University conferred 
upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 

He was chosen pastor of the Fourth Baptist Church, 
Chicago, in January, 1882. There the larger oppor- 
tunities for work afforded by a great city were again 
his, and his vigor of body and mind was more than 
restored. In his journal he says: " My health at 51 
is apparently better than at 21." Certainly he had 
greater power of endurance. The church building 
was inadequate in size, comfort and attractiveness to 
the needs of the congregation, but the people were 
alert, zealous in good works and devoted to the pastor. 
Soon after coming to the city, Mrs. Kennard, who had 
always been interested in practical temperance work, 
opened a mission on South Halsted street. From this 
mission reformed men were from time to time brought 
into the church, and were most kindly received. Some 
of these men have become active Christian workers, 
and one is a preacher of the Gospel. 

For a number of years Dr. Kennard had felt 
himself called to preach the Gospel as an evangelist. 
He had talents peculiarly fitting him for such a high 
vocation, and he possessed every qualification neces- 
sary to success. A born orator, his commanding and 
dignified presence, his powerful yet exquisitely modu- 
lated voice, his abounding sympathy, his intimate 
knowledge of the way to reach and influence the hearts 
of his hearers, all combined to make him an almost 
ideal preacher. To these qualifications he added care- 



XXVI IN MEMORIAM. 

ful preparation, unremitting study, and the "open 
mind ' ' which is always ready to learn from others 
and profit by observation. 

He entered upon the work of evangelism in 1887, 
and for more than seven years deprived himself of 
home comfort and the happiness of being with his 
beloved family for the sake of increased usefulness in 
the Master's cause. During the first winter he made 
a tour of some of the principal cities of the South — 
Atlanta, Montgomery, Macon and others — and, at the 
urgent solicitation of the churches, his labors ..contin- 
ued until the heat of midsummer. In the brief 
period of eighteen days spent in Atlanta the church 
was greatly revived and strengthened, and more than 
a hundred were brought to Christ. In Montgomery 
his work was still more remarkable, as he was able to 
reach that most difficult of all classes, the young club 
men. There he received this letter from — 

Two young men who have been greatly benefited by 
Dr. Kennard's preaching, and are praying for all the 
young men of this city. For God's sake, don't leave 
this week. Young men are talking and thinking 
about religion who have before treated it with utter 
contempt. Yours truly, 

Two Hard Casks. 

The people thronged to the meetings, and, as usual, 
the preacher was unsparing of his own strength. He 
would hold a service at any hour of the day or night, 
when he could get an audience. Frequently he records 
a morning service from eight to nine- thirty, an after- 
noon service at four, and the regular preaching in the 



IN MEMORIAM. XXV11 

evening, with an after-meeting lasting until ten 
o'clock. On Sunday he addressed the Sunday School, 
then preached, held a meeting for men in the after- 
noon, and the usual service at night. While intense 
and enthusiastic always, his preaching was never sen- 
sational. As the interest in a church deepened the 
atmosphere became tense with a spiritual emotion that 
did not, however, tend toward hysteria. 

Here, as in Atlanta, the people vied with each other 
in expressions of love and appreciation. For, although 
a Northern man, Dr. Kennard was entirely free from 
sectional feeling, and the Southerners in turn were sur- 
prised and delighted to find him so completely sympa- 
thetic and ' ' one of themselves. ' ' 

In one of his home letters he says : ' i I wish I had 
a day or two to rest before beginning in Macon, but 
my engagements overlap by reason that they are bound 
I shall stay a few days longer at each place, and so 
the next has to be postponed, and I hate to ask a fur- 
ther postponement." In Macon he was received with 
the same cordiality, and his work was blessed in the 
same abundant measure. Very soon after his arrival 
an incident occurred which stirred his righteous soul. 
The Salvation Army had sent some of its officers to 
the city, but the intelligent people regarded them with 
suspicion, while the lower classes met them with 
ridicule and hatred. 

Two of these officers, after being grossly insulted 
by the police and the mob, were arrested and thrown 
into jail. The next morning a " trial" was given 
them, and they were put under bonds to keep the 



XXV111 IN MEMORIAM. 

peace. That afternoon Dr. Kennard was to address a 
meeting in the Academy of Music. He invited one of 
the officers to occupy the platform with him, and in- 
troduced him to the audience as ' ' a fellow laborer 
who has had the honor of suffering in prison for 
Christ's sake." Then the young man, an intelligent 
and modest fellow, related his experience of conversion 
and offered prayer, the evangelist kneeling beside him 
on the stage. Afterward Dr. Kennard commended 
and explained the work of the Salvation Army, and 
denounced the action of the Mayor, the City Attorney 
and the Recorder who tried the case. It was a danger- 
ous stand for a stranger and a Northerner to take, and 
many men would have kept silence, feeling themselves 
justified in considering the possible injury to their own 
work. But the warm-hearted Southerners recognized 
his chivalrous spirit, and responded with cordiality. 
One of the men denounced asked to be introduced 
to the evangelist, and accepted the rebuke in a 
friendly way. The Mayor also announced that he 
would allow the Salvationists to hold meetings in any 
of the parks, and even offered to provide seats for their 
audiences. 

It had now grown very warm, and Dr. Kennard 
greatly desired to attend the Southern Baptist Conven- 
tion and seek a little respite from his labors. But the 
pastor of the Macon church was ill and could not 
preach, the meetings were continuously crowded and 
many enquirers were coming forward each night. He 
could not take the responsibility of leaving them. 
When the meeting was over he went to Albany, 



IN MEMORIAM. XXIX 

Georgia, and from there to Cuthbert, finishing his work 
early in June, and having seen as the result of his 
personal labors more than six hundred souls brought 
to Christ. A letter from the last-mentioned place to 
the " Christian Index" voices the general sentiment. 
After recounting the fruits of the ten days' mission, 
the writer says: 

' ' The preaching was all done, and the meetings 
were mainly conducted, by Rev. J. S. Kennard, D.D., of 
Chicago. Of all the evangelists from abroad whom I 
have met, he most nearly approaches my notion of a 
model New Testament evangelist. He may truly be 
called a powerful preacher, yet he makes no effort at 
elaborately intellectual discourse. His sermons are 
remarkable for plainness and simplicity. There is, 
both in his preaching and his methods of conducting 
his meetings, an entire absence of eccentricities and 
effort at mere sensation. With a lively, emotional 
nature, full of genuine tenderness, and abounding 
in the sweet arts of loving persuasion, he neither ex- 
pends himself in awakening excitement in his hearers, 
nor gives any erroneous or uncertain direction to 
awaken feeling. With him Christ is emphaticalty all 
in all. Believe in, accept, submit to, the loving 
Saviour, who only can furnish the righteousness 
demanded by God's holy law, and who ' is able to 
save unto the uttermost all who come unto God by 
Him,' is the burden of his every exhortation, warning 
and persuasion. The indifferent are most tenderly 
admonished of impending danger, the anxious are 
carefully advised to read God's Word inquiringly and 
upon their knees, while the cross is continually held 
before their eyes as the sure hope which they may and 
ought to accept now. None are hurried into the 
church without careful inquiry into their spiritual 



XXX IN MEMORIAM. 

state, and full instructions as to the nature and evi- 
dences of regeneration, and concerning the important 
obligations of a profession of religion. 

One important characteristic of Dr. Kennard as an 
evangelist is his complete recognition of the rights and 
responsibilities of the local pastor. This characteris- 
tic is, unfortunately, not possessed by all who assume 
the evangelistic office. For the lack of it and on ac- 
count of a free use of clap- trap, stage tricks and down- 
right humbuggery, many who travel as dispensers of 
the good news of salvation have incurred the suspicion 
of ambition, self-seeking, and even of hypocrisy. The 
sacred office of evangelist has itself been brought into 
disesteem. Consequently, many careful pastors are 
slow to admit the professional revivalist into their 
fields. Yet among the classes of ministers catalogued 
in the New Testament we find evangelists ; and obser- 
vation shows that there are diversities of gifts to this 
day in the church. Many men who are of great value 
as constant instructors and as administrators of church 
affairs are perceived by others, as well as acknowledged 
by themselves, to be painfully deficient in the special 
work of awakening the unconverted and openly gather- 
ing souls into the church; while others, whose labors 
in the latter line are unmistakably and gloriously 
blessed, would be found equally wanting in some im- 
portant qualifications for the pastoral office. 

The entire community regrets his departure. Hav- 
ing had the privilege of entertaining him during his 
stay among us, I learned to love him very much. 
Thanking God for sending him this way, I earnestly 
commend him to the brethren everywhere. 

John T. Clarke. 

For the next six years Dr. Kennard spent almost all 
his time in active evangelism. In 1888 he went to the 



IN MKMORIAM. XXXI 

Pacific Coast, and greatly strengthened the churches in 
San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Diego 
and Riverside. Through special services he reached 
many young men who were not accustomed to attend- 
ing church, and had the joy of reaping a rich harvest 
of souls. Great as was his desire to remain with his 
family, and in a settled pastorate, the call to field 
service seemed imperative. Again and again he crossed 
the continent from east to west and traversed the 
United States from north to south, laboring in cities 
as far distant as Brooklyn, New York, and Sioux 
Falls, South Dakota, and Austin, Texas. 

He was not content with preaching the Gospel from 
the pulpit. He carried it from door to door wherever 
they would hear him. Of this work he wrote : 

' ' You cannot tell how this individual work, directly 
to invite the people to Christ, goes to my heart. If I 
had my way, I would just go on a tramp among the 
destitute places, as Uncle John Vassar did. It is 
about as near Christ's method as anything I can 
think of." 

During his few periods of rest he occupied the time 
in writing. His home-coming was always looked for- 
ward to by himself and his family with impatience. 
When traveling he wrote almost daily, and never was 
satisfied if a day passed without receiving a letter from 
home. His arrival was the signal for general jubila- 
tion, and the family would all gather around to hear 
of his trip and tell of all that had happened while he 
was gone. He was interested in all the details of his 



XXX11 IN MEMORIAM. 

children's life, anxious about their studies and much 
concerned for their future. To his sons he was always 
an ideal man. As each one launched out in his busi- 
ness or profession he felt that his father had the 
strongest interest in his success and shared his 
anxieties. 

His unaffected, courteous respect for womanhood 
was ever conspicuous, especially in his relation to his own 
wife and daughters. To the former he was always a 
lover, and constantly attributed his success and the hap- 
piness of his life to her. To the latter he was a friend 
and companion, never unapproachable, always sympa- 
thetic, while his keen enjoyment of a frolic bridged 
the difference of years. His childlike trust in peo- 
ple, even after repeated disappointments, occasioned a 
great deal of playful reproof from his children. He 
was extravagantly fond of music, and at any hour of 
the day or evening would suggest that ' ' we have a 
little singing. ' ' When depressed or anxious, he could 
easily be brought to a cheerful state of mind by an 
appeal to his sense of the ridiculous, as he was always 
able to see the amusing side of a situation. His 
geniality and his readiness to share in the griefs as in 
the joys of other people won the affection of all with 
whom he was brought into contact. He asked little for 
his personal comfort or gratification, and . was revered 
and loved by the poor and lowly. He had a naturally 
quick temper, but he had too sweet a nature ever to 
intentionally wound, and if he had spoken rashly in 
his " haste," was immediate in his repentance and 
sorrow. 



IN MEMORIAM. XXX111 

At the earnest solicitation of his family he 
returned to regular pastoral work in the Belden 
Avenue Church, Chicago, but after two years resigned 
because of impaired health; that was his last pastoral 
charge. 

Dr. Kennard and his family then removed to 
Pittsburg and became identified with the Shad3^ 
Avenue Church, with whose pastor, Dr. Stanton, he 
had a most pleasant association. The following 
winter he went to visit his eldest son, who was living 
in Florence, Italy, and spent nearly a year in Europe. 
With the enthusiasm of a boy he absorbed the history 
and art of that country. He revived his old acquaint- 
ance with Savonarola, exploring the convent of San 
Marco, climbing the many steps to the little cell of 
the great preacher's prison, and hunting in dusty 
little shops for portraits of the " Prediche." The 
beautiful simplicity of St. Francis of Assisi fascinated 
him and, having made himself familiar with the saint's 
history, he paid a visit to Assisi to see the many spots 
made sacred through their relation to the saint. He 
was not less interested in the history and problems of 
modern Italy. He was burdened with the sorrows of 
Armenia, and he was moved to indignation by the 
"Concert of Europe." With most of us distance 
from the scene of sorrow seems to have a benumbing 
effect upon the feelings. But Dr. Kennard was more 
free from this insensibility than any one whom I have 
known. His heart was touched by everything that 
affected his brother man. 

His soul instantly responded to the sublime in 



XXXIV IN MEMORIAM. 

nature. Though full of interest in art and architec- 
ture, he showed a greater delight in mountain scenery 
or the majesty of the ocean. As the train slowly 
climbed the Alps his face was radiant, his lips eloquent 
with appreciation of glacier and mountain stream, of 
snow-capped peak and verdant valley. 

While in Florence he frequently preached for his 
friend, Dr. McDougall, of the Scotch Presbyterian 
church. On his way home he had the pleasure of 
attending the Keswick meeting in L,ondon and of 
hearing Joseph Parker ; but his life-long admiration 
for Charles Spurgeon would have found his greatest 
satisfaction in a sight of that rugged face. That, how- 
ever, he was not to see until they met in the 
Resurrection. 

From this European trip, the only long vacation 
of his life, Dr. Kennard returned much refreshed, and 
at the earnest solicitation of the Pittsburg ministers 
he undertook the rehabilitation of the distracted little 
church at Connellsville. Through his tact, his 
courage, his wisdom and his piety he reunited the 
church and presented it to the denomination again ' ' in 
its right mind." Of the next two years a part he 
spent in Pittsburg, and a part in Philadelphia, his 
native city. His mind was as vigorous as in youth, 
and in the pulpit he gave not the least indication of 
failing strength. Many of those who heard him in 
the Fourth Avenue Church, Pittsburg, a few months 
before his death, were astonished when they heard 
that he was gone. But his heart continued to distress 
him, and an attack of grippe sapped the springs of 



IN MEMORIAM. XXXV 

vitality. He seemed to have a premonition that the 
time was short, and strove to complete his literary- 
work and to put his house in order. In the month of 
September, feeling a great longing for the sea, he 
planned to go to Atlantic City, though at the moment 
of departure strangely reluctant to leave home. He 
stopped in Philadelphia for medical treatment, and 
there attended the Philadelphia Association, where he 
spoke and offered a prayer long to be remembered by 
those who heard it. He also preached in Germantown. 
His letters from the seashore show the growing weari- 
ness, the longing for his loved ones, but the still 
greater longing for ' ' home. ' ' He recalled the forty 
years of his married life, and his heart went out to the 
wife of his youth as he blessed God for her love and 
faithfulness. But the old ocean had lost its charm. 
The monotonous waves were too boisterous for his tired 
soul. 

Restlessness soon drove him back to Philadelphia 
to his son's home. The morning after his arrival he 
drove from Chestnut Hill to Germantown and visited 
the boarding-school where he spent part of his boy- 
hood. In the evening he was not well. But, never- 
theless, he went into the city the next day, " on his 
way home ' ' stopping to bid farewell to the sister who 
from early childhood, and through school and college 
days, had been his confidant and counsellor. At her 
house he was taken ill, and two days later, October 
16, 1899, he ' ' went home. ' ' ' 'Absent from the body, 
he was present with the Lord." 

To his family and friends his death came with a 



XXXV 1 IN MEMORIAM. 

shock of surprise and grief; they were stunned. Let- 
ters and telegrams poured in, all with the same note 
of personal loss. One who had known him but a few 
months said: " I do not think you will understand me 
when I say that this is a terrible blow to me, and a 
deep sorrow. And yet, having had him for a father, 
you may be able to understand that his tenderness and 
loveliness of life and character endeared him at once 
to me, and I thought of him always with more affec- 
tion than I feel for many people whom I have known 
much longer and, in a way, much better." 

An old friend of his early ministry said : ' ' Dr. 
Kennard belongs so essentially to youth and active 
life that any other life than this seems foreign and 
alien to his nature. I always think of him as in the 
old Woburn days — so bright, so buoyant, so happy, 
making sunshine wherever he went, gladdening the 
hearts of all with whom he came into contact. What a 
useful life he has had ! What a multitude of lives he 
has touched, and always for good ! What a throng of 
ransomed souls will welcome him to his Heavenly 
home!" 

One who had known him only in business rela- 
tions said: "It was with sincere regret and sorrow 
that I read the news of Dr. Kennard' s death. My 
heart went out in sympathy to you and yours. I 
shall never forget the unequaled and never-failing 
kindness and courtesy of Dr. Kennard in all social and 
business relations. ' ' One who had never known him 
at all, except through extracts of his sermons and 
references to him found in her mother's Journal, wrote 



IN MKMORIAM. XXXvii 

that she had become a Christian through reading that 
Journal, and so thanked him for her mother's and 
her own conversion. 

The assembly of those who had known him best 
and desired to render final honors to his mortal 
remains was most fittingly held in the dear Tenth 
Church, of so many blessed memories. If they could 
have come from Bast and West and North and South, all 
who had been blessed through his life, all who loved 
him and loved God and men more because of him, 
what a company it would have made! With more 
than four thousand persons who had been led to Christ 
through his labors, and the uncounted numbers of 
Christians whose Christian life was richer and fuller 
by reason of his teaching and example; with the 
united voice of the churches which he had helped and 
strengthened, and the churches of which he had been 
the inspiration and originator ; with these and many 
others to sing songs of rejoicing, what a triumphant 
welcome awaited the Soldier of the Cross as he entered 
into rest! 

And they who had assembled to do him reverence 
thought they saw heaven opened. The grief of the 
sorrowing friends was hushed as they were enfolded 
by the solemn peace of that hour and the glow of the 
autumn sunshine which fell upon the scarlet leaves. 
The simple service was conducted by Philadelphia pas- 
tors who had been at one time or another connected with 
his life and work. Dr. Hoyt, Dr. Peltz, Dr. Gordon, Dr. 
Rowland and the pastor of the Tenth Church all paid 
him their loving tribute. One had been with him in 



XXXV111 IN MEMORIAM. 

school and college, and his voice quivered as he spoke of 
the stainless purity and buoyant courage of that young 
manhood. Another had labored in the same city 
during his pastoral days, and had felt the inspiration 
of his intellectual and spiritual vitality. Another had 
stood by his side in evangelistic work, and had had his 
heart warmed by the fire of love for perishing souls. 
Another had seen the last bright glow of that ardent 
spirit before it had been caught within the veil. No 
stereotyped words of comfort were needed by those 
who had been comforted of God. All thought of self 
was forgotten. The ordinary cares and pleasures of 
life faded into insignificance. In recalling the life of 
one so full of the mind of Christ they talked famil- 
iarly of heaven. One read the verses which their 
" Chrysostom " * had written just before his transla- 
tion. 

The Hon. John Wanamaker came forward and 
said that he had pushed all business aside that he 
might come and mourn with those who mourned for 
his friend. "I have known him many years," he 
continued, ' ' in early and in later manhood, and never 
has he been found wanting. To me the word which 
best expresses his message to us is ' fidelity. ' ' ' 

One week later they laid him oh a sunny slope in 
West Iyaurel Hill for his last sleep. Well might he 
rest, who, like Paul, could say, " I have fought a good 
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 
Henceforth is laid up for me a crown." 

Of Dr. Kennard's literary work mention has been 

* The name given him by Dr. George C L,orimer years before. 



IN MKMORIAM. XXXIX 

made several times. That lie had marked ability in 
this direction none of those associated with him 
doubted. Had his life been less laborious, had he been 
permitted the periods of comparative leisure which 
come to many ministers, he would have left behind 
him very much that was valuable. He was constantly 
looking forward to the time when he could ' ' settle 
down and write." 

Most of his writings were of the nature of essays, 
brief and answering to the passing occasions — fugitive 
pieces. He was a frequent contributor to several 
religious papers, ' ' The Baptist Weekly, " ' * The 
Watchman," " The Standard, " and for a number of 
years to "The Homiletic Review." His articles on 
Buddha, on Savonarola and on St. Francis of Assisi, 
his three articles on ' ' The Outlook for Protestantism 
in Italy," and his exquisite " letters to a Restless 
Soul ' ' are among the most notable of these. The 
series on Pulpit Eloquence (which are embodied in 
this book) brought him scores of letters of apprecia- 
tion and requests for a more extended review of the 
subject. While living in Philadelphia he published a 
"Memorial" of . his father, of which a critic said: 
' ' Portions of the work are written not only with the 
strict fidelity to truth which characterizes the whole, 
but with great beauty and power, especially the 
graphic pen-portraits of Brother Kennard ' in the 
Pulpit,' ' in Revivals ' and * in the Conference Room '; 
while the tender and touching account of his transla- 
tion is the most affecting I ever read. ' ' 

In his series of papers called ' ' Clerical Table Talk ' ' 



xl IN MEMORIAM. 

he showed a keen appreciation of the peculiar phases 
and experiences of a pastor's life, which he illustrates 
with a wealth of interesting and effective anecdotes. 
His mind, however, was essentially poetic, and all his 
writing is livened by imagination. He wrote verse 
fluently, and some of his hymns have received their 
appropriate setting in music ; but his finest work is 
done in vivid prose. In his earlier period the excel- 
lence is not sustained, though at times rising to 
heights of eloquence; but later we find a virility, a 
strength and a certain dignity of movement which 
makes us regret that he gave not more time to literary 
studies and to the work of authorship. 

But he had a nobler mission than to make litera- 
ture, and to it he gave himself without reserve. That 
work was the preaching of the Gospel. To this his 
highest powers were given, and to it all else was sub- 
ordinated. Dr. Kennard always prepared his sermons 
with the greatest care, giving the best fruit of heart, 
and mind, and spirit to sustain his flock day by day. 
He preached almost entirely without notes, but did 
not trust to the inspiration of the moment. His ser- 
mon was first thought out, then worked out, until all 
the parts were firmly compacted, and the whole 
pulsated with life and power. The profoundest 
thought was presented in such simple language that 
" the laboring man, though a fool," might understand 
and little children feed upon the sincere milk of the 
word. He never was solicitous about giving to his 
sermons beauty of form, nor sacrificed a fraction of 
their dynamic force to literary excellence. Once he 



IN MEMORIAM. xll 

wrote : "To have people say to me, ' I was pleased 
with your sermon/ or 'That was a fine discourse': if 
sinners are not converted, it seems all such a sham. ' ' 
Again: " I have a strong conviction of the supreme 
value of spiritual power and a desire for it, I think, 
more entire than my desire for any other gift or 
attainment. ' ' 

Yet the thoughts springing from so rich a soil 
could not but clothe themselves with forms of beauty, 
and his poetic soul found illustrations of the truth in a 
thousand sparkling images. He was a natural critic, 
with a mind keenly analytical in argument and a 
ready wit with which to defend himself in repartee ; 
yet he never indulged in satire. He was able to con- 
tend with a theological adversary without losing his 
own temper or wounding his opponent's feelings. At 
one time he took occasion to answer some arguments 
in a sermon on Evolution by Henry Ward Beecher, 
and received from him a cordial letter, from which the 
following extract is taken: * 

"I have read your reported sermon, delivered 
yesterday, with great interest. I have to thank you 
for your kindness of feeling manifested and the absence 
of that rigor of orthodoxy which seems to be but a 
covert form of saying ' damn you.' But I am not say- 
ing this as an expression of surprise. One would have 
expected this excellent spirit in you. But the point 
of my gratification is that the time has come for an 
honest discussion of the views of the old and new 

* Following this memoir the letter is given in full as presenting most, 
clearly and compactly Mr. Beecher' s attitude toward " The New Theology. ' v 



Xliv IN MKMORIAM. 

attacking Orthodoxy. I belong to this wing of the Christian 
Army. But I cannot get my own views out, except by a com- 
parison of them to the disadvantage of the standard views. If 
to any I seem to bring wit and humor to an irreverent use, I can 
only say, I do it because I cannot help it. So things come to 
me, so I must express them — but not as a sneer, or scoff — though, 
often with impetuous feeling, and with open mirth. 

My life is drawing to an end. A few more working years 
only have I left. No one can express the earnestness which I 
feel that, in the advance of science, which will inevitably sweep 
away much rubbish from the beliefs of men, a place may be 
found for a higher spirituality — for a belief that shall have its 
roots in science, and its top in the sunlight of faith and love. 
For that I am working and shall work as long as I work at all. 

The discussion has begun. God is in it. It must go on. It 
is one of those great movements which come when God would 
lift men to a higher level. The root of the whole matter with 
me is, in a word, this : 

Which is the central element of Moral Government, Love or 
Hatred? 

I say Hatred, for in human hands that is what Justice has 
largely amounted to. I hold that they are not coequal. True 
Justice, in its primitive form, is simply pain — and this suffering 
is auxiliary, pedagogic — the schoolmaster until men are enough 
developed to work by Love. Love is not auxiliary. It is the 
one undivided force of Moral Government, to which God 
is bringing this Universe. Forgive my length. I should wish. 
to live in the affection and confidence of my brethren in the 
Christian Ministry. But I cannot, for the sake of earning it, 
yield one jot or tittle of loyalty to that Kingdom of Love which 
is coming, and of which I am but as one crying in the wilder- 
ness " prepare ye the way of the Lord." 

I am affectionately yours, 

Henry Ward Bekcher. 



A Pulpit of Power the Need 
of the Times 



CHAPTER I 

A Pulpit of Power the Need 
of the Times 



OF the Italian Renaissance, no figure, not even 
that of Lorenzo the Magnificent, looms up so 
commandingly as that of Savonarola, the 
preaching friar. He stands there in the pulpit 
of the vast Cathedral of Florence, a city brilliant 
with art and luxury, and full of social corruption, gor- 
geous religion and graceless living. He had been 
summoned there by the entreaties of the despairing 
Signoria and people, from the seclusion of his cell into 
which his disgust at the seeming failure of his gospel 
of reform had driven him. He came forth to preach 
to that vast multitude of starving, hopeless Floren- 
tines, besieged at once by powerful armies, pestilence 
and famine , suffering and desperation marking every 
face. To that miserable throng, lately his enemies, 
Savonarola spoke as an ambassador of God ; he won 
them to penitence, cheered them with promises of 
divine mercy, and lo ! while leading them in a pro- 
cession of tearful humiliation through the streets, a 
messenger galloped into the midst proclaiming that 
1 ' salvation had come ! ' ' Friendly ships, driven by a 
tempest which scattered the blockading fleet, had 
brought food and reinforcements. The surging mul- 



2 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

titudes cried out: "The friar's preaching has 
saved us once more ! ' ' Then followed those wonder- 
ful years in which the preacher successfully disputed 
with the Medicean despot the moral dominion of 
Florence ; I^orenzo clothed in luxurious unrighteous- 
ness — Savonarola armed with the scepter of truth and 
flaming zeal for God's honor and man's salvation. 
And when we see him at last summoned to Lorenzo's 
dying bed and ministering there in the spirit of Elijah, 
we say : ' ' There is a man of power — a man for the 
times ! ' ' He transformed Florence, at least for the 
time ; literally enthroned Christ as King in Florence, 
and inscribed his title, ' ' King of kings and I^ord of 
lords" over the door of the Palazzo Vecchio, where 
it still remains, a testimony of what once was done by 
a Pulpit of Power. 

Four centuries have passed since then, but human 
nature has not changed. Freedom, law, intelligence 
have wrought vast revolutions in society such as in 
that day were only the dream of poets, and this morn 
of the Twentieth Century is pregnant with a new his- 
tory, with mightier issues and higher political and 
social ethics than any that has preceded it, but no 
age more imperatively needed a Pulpit of Power — a 
Prophet voice proclaiming Him who, for man and the 
nation and the age, is ' ' The Way, the Truth and the 
Iyife." Are there not, now, social despotisms that 
need dethroning, a social life that needs purifying, a 
church that needs a Renaissance of primitive faith and 
sacrifice, revolutionary forces that need a controlling 
hand no less than Divine ? Are the School, the Press 



A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 3 

and the State proving their ability to deal with these 
perilous times and these transcendent issues? On 
the 400th anniversary of his martyrdom, Florence 
celebrated, with solemn pomp and festival of joy, 
the memory of Savonarola. Flowers strewed the 
place where the flames had swathed his dead body. 
From a stage where his gallows had stood in the Piazza 
Signoria eloquent lips eulogized him as preacher and 
patriot for all time. And the hope of Italy, the hope 
of America, the hope of humanity, to-day, is such a 
ministry of heroic daring and spiritual power. 

Twenty years ago a smart writer in the London 
Times asked, " Why this preaching ? Why does this 
man talk to us ? Why not be content to worship only 
when we go to church ? ' ' About the same time, in a 
more serious vein, the Edinburgh Review said, ''Divin- 
ity fills up her weekly hour by the grave and gentle 
excitement of an orthodox discourse, or by toiling 
through her narrow round of systematic dogmas, or 
by creeping along some low level of school-boy moral- 
ity, or by addressing the initiated in mystic phraseol- 
ogy ; but she has ceased to employ lips such as those 
of Chrysostom or Bourdaloue. ' ' And these utterances 
have had many an echo since, from sources of more 
or less importance. An English Church clergyman, 
a few years since, referring apparently to his own 
National Church, elaborately argued "The Failure of 
the Pulpit," and a New England religious periodical 
invited a symposium on the solemn problem, ' ' Shall 
we go on preaching ? ' ' These voices, which are quite 
representative of a class not altogether frivolous, can- 



4 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

not be silenced by indifference or apology. A radical 
and fearless reconsideration of the position and func- 
tion of the preacher in this Twentieth Century — which 
is neither the apostolic nor the mediaeval — is demanded. 
It need not be feared but that it will appear, whether 
from a religious or philosophical, a socialistic or 
humanitarian, a patriotic or a practical, an ethical or 
an evangelical point of view, that the pulpit is 
neither obsolete nor obsolescent. The preacher is, and 
should continue to be, a paramount power in human 
society. 

The pulpit no longer rules as it did when, allied 
with the State, it was the chief fountain of learning 
and authority ; when the preacher alone raised ques- 
tions, ethical and social, and answered them, with 
none to dispute his verdict ; when the seminary where 
the minister was educated was the mystic treasury 
of most of the learning, and his library contained the 
rest. 

To-day a continuous stream of information and 
discussion of all subjects, and in popular form, rolls 
through the land and finds its way to every door. The 
most vital questions affecting human life and destiny 
are affluently treated, not only in books, but upon every 
platform, in religious and in secular newspapers, side 
by side with politics and trade. Everybody knows 
everything now-a-days, or thinks he does, and the 
awe which the pulpit once inspired has disappeared. 
In saying, however, that the power of the pulpit 
as an institution has declined, we would by no means 
concede that the power of the preacher has gone with 



A PULPIT OP POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 5 

it. On the contrary, as the peculiar awe which in- 
vested the office has lessened, the greater is the demand 
that the man himself, as a living force among men and 
called to a supreme function, should heroically attain 
and maintain a personal power unaided by the but- 
tressing of the State or the mystic authority of the 
Church. 

The highest and most enduring elements of power 
remain the same in all the mutations of the ages, and 
owe little to environment. They are at their best when 
called to conquer without the alliance of favoring con- 
ditions. If illustrations of this were needed, the ca- 
reer of that man who, in our generation, has divided 
with the world's greatest statesmen and princes the 
interested gaze of his cotemporaries — Charles Had- 
don Spurgeon — would be sufficient. Nay, the bene- 
ficent and acknowledged forcefulness of a Moody 
among the masses and a Phillips Brooks or a Maclaren 
among the cultured, would prove that this strenuous, 
conceited and materialistic age, not less than any 
former one, confesses the preacher's power. I go 
further ; I affirm that it is historically and rationally 
demonstrable that times of enlightenment and pro- 
gress, like these, are more favorable to the preacher's 
power, more hospitable to it, more fruitful of the best 
results than any since the dawn of Christianity. In 
fact the preacher's power is as much nobler and more 
enduring than that of the Savonarolas or the John 
Knoxes of a former day, as that of the electrician, the 
biologist and the statesman of these times is nobler 
than that of the alchemist, the thaumaturgist and the 



*s 



6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

feudal lord of an age of ignorance and superstition. 
* ' Is he a physician of souls ? He can better operate on 
wakeful than on torpid patients. Is he an advocate ? 
He can better plead before an educated jury than a 
clownish one. If his appeal is to men's will, it is, at 
least to one unfettered by fear ; if to the conscience, it 
is to one unclouded by superstition ; if to the heart, it 
is to one never more aching with unrest or hungry for 
reality and love." 

The philosopher and poet declare that the times 
are barren of enthusiasm and heroism ; and that a 
frivolous materialism in its dance of death is tramp- 
ling out the torch of the soul. There is some 
truth and much folly in this despondent view of things. 
It springs from a shallow skepticism which looks only 
at the worst features of an age whose field of Christian 
activities shows divinest enthusiasm and heroism for 
humanity. But whatever truth there be in the pes- 
simist's view of the times, it is all but a challenge to 
the best exercise of the preacher's power. 

If never before were men so utterly ' 'without God 
and without hope ;" if, according to the poets of de- 
spair, materialistic curiosity has "ripped, one by one, 
the world's pretty dolls and scattered the sawdust 
along its starless path," then it is surely the fullness 
of time for the true Prometheus to appear again, if he 
but carry in his reed the celestial fire ; it is time for the 
herald who has a real message of life and immortality, 
who has seen God face to face and gotten his message 
from Him, to lift up his voice like a trumpet. 

In a word, if a man know how to preach the everlast- 



A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 7 

ing gospel, if he be himself a living incarnation of its 
perennial freshness and force, its life and peace and joy, 
if he be a voice that can speak, not only the seminary 
lore, but the Saviour's love, then there never was a 
time when he could have a more open and inviting 
field, or a more grateful welcome among thronging 
men, or a fairer hope of success in the highest sense. 
If there is weakness in the pulpit in our day, it is not 
the fault of the ' 'spirit of the age." The preachers of 
the apostolic era faced such pharisaic pride, such 
religious obstinacy, such depravity and frivolity, such 
fortified selfishness as is not equalled in our age ; but 
they were not dismayed — by the power of their words 
they conquered. If the pulpit to-day is lacking in 
power, the sin lies at its own door and cannot be shifted 
to the shoulders of society. The people, the press, 
public opinion in whatever way expressed, so far from 
antagonizing, would eagerly welcome a pulpit of 
greater power, in fact are insisting upon it. The 
living preacher never had so many aids and openings ; 
men's hearts and homes and lives were never more 
hospitable to his message, and all the more as he 
approaches them simply as a man sent from God with 
a practical hope and help upon his lips. 

In saying this I would not ignore those palpable 
facts which tend to repress pulpit power. One of 
these is found in the very process of ordinary theolog- 
ical training in our seminaries. In spite of the eleva- 
tion of religious scholarship, the development of pulpit 
power shows in our graduates little advance. The 
seclusion of the student, for the six or eight years of 



8 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

his classical and seminary course, from contact with 
the real life of the toiling world to which he is at 
length to minister, and his constant dealing with 
abstract thought, and breathing a scholarly atmos- 
phere, is not conducive to that "love of the people" 
which the Abbe* Mullois tells us is the first qualifica- 
tion, or that "sympathy with their wants" which 
Vinet makes the foundation of the preacher's efficiency. 
His preaching is apt to be scholarly, theological, apolo- 
getic, classical, dogmatic, correct — everything but 
simple, natural, vital, enthusiastic, familiar, vehement, 
or, in other words, powerful. 

Nor can we ignore the temper and trend of the 
age, its crowding of material activities and lack of 
moral earnestness, its abundant inventions, sciences, 
discoveries, enterprises, and its few spiritual lives ; 
everything superficial — except human discontent, and 
that very deep, and not without volcanic mutterings. 
It is an era of fads, of laughter at everything, from 
Heaven's law and love to Hell's penalties. Life seems 
stripped of solemnity and sublimity, men's brains and 
hearts becoming taverns for the revels of le jeune Steele 
novelties rather than the home of truth and happiness. 
There is a strong temptation, with such surroundings,. 
to accommodate our teaching to the mood of the peo- 
ple ; to make the Word only scintillate when it should 
shine and burn ; to consult people's whims rather than 
their wants, to be popular rather than powerful, and 
to avoid sinking into insignificance, not by the strength 
with which we breast the tide, but by the lightness 
with which we float on the current. The very famili- 



A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 9 

arity of the preacher's themes may put his soul to 
sleep, while the panorama of the gay world may dis- 
tract him, like the rest, from the pulpit's chief work. 
Is it any wonder if power wanes, and the preacher 
almost loses enthusiasm for humanity, and with 
scarcely self-reproach sees the vanishing of his early 
ideal ? 

It is against such demoralizing and enfeebling 
influences he is boldly to strive ; his nobility obliges 
him to this ; his responsibility is imperative. The 
objects which the preacher seeks to attain remain as 
unutterably and inconceivably great as ever. God, 
eternity, the soul, all that concern man's duty here 
and his destiny hereafter — these are his themes, and 
are as unfading as the blue of heaven, as inexhaustible 
as the sorrows and joys of humanity. What power 
ought that man to have who stands before an audi- 
ence on whom he looks as immortal souls for whom 
he must give account, unto whom those men look 
with intelligent reverence, predisposed to be influ- 
enced for good, where prayer lends its inspira- 
tion and music its wings to the soul ! He stands 
in a relation the most solemn of all this side the judg- 
ment ; he speaks, as Heaven's ambassador, to the con- 
science, the heart, the life, of every one beneath his 
gaze; he pours the affluence of God's love, and light, and 
life, over dark and tempted and struggling and weary 
natures, probes the depth of human guilt, unveils the 
glories of salvation, and performs his work environed 
consciously by the powers of the world to come ! What 
a boundless wealth of materials he has out of which to 



IO PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

weave the net in whose meshes the ' 'fisher of men" is 
to catch souls ! The whole field of man's experience in 
history, the whole field of current life in the world, 
the realms of nature, science and art, he may lay 
under contribution to illustrate and enforce the teach- 
ings of God's Word, which in themselves abound as 
much in variety as they do in sublimity. His divine 
call involves his right to summon all the powers of 
Heaven and earth as allies, but his own personal power 
is, under the Divine Spirit, the chief element of 
success. 

What Pere L,acordaire, in his illustrious defence, 
said of Genius may, with modification, be said of the 
power and inspiration the preacher needs. ' 'Genius," 
said he, "is formed by two things — God and a dun- 
geon. ' ' If genius may be defined as energy exalted by 
inspiration, then we may say that the power by which 
we are to win and constrain the world to prostrate 
itself before the Cross is the outgrowth of three 
things — God and Solitude, and the I^ove of Souls. 
Panoplied in the learning of the schools and the skill 
of culture, we stand in the very focus of illumination 
and illustration. On all the subjects we are called to 
teach, and all the work we are called to do, we have 
books, periodicals, conventions, symposia, examples — 
what do we not have to make us a ministry of power ? 
Only these we seem not to have, at least in impressive 
evidence — God, and Solitude, and the Sacrificial I^ove 
of Souls. We are responsible for the men of our gen- 
eration ; Heaven is expectant of their conversion ; 
their blood will God require at our hands ! Science 



A PUIvPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. II 

has not convinced us that they are the children of 
apes ; neither are they the children of the Devil. 
Many of them are his bondservants, but they have 
wants, hungerings, fears, hopes that are deep, surgent 
and dominating as instincts, and these make them 
susceptible to God when he is rightly presented. 
But when is he so presented ? 

We offer to these lost brethren, who with a blind 
and dumb and aching instinct feel after Him if so be 
they may find Him ; needing Him though they shun 
Him — we may offer to these bewildered men an ortho- 
dox God, a theological God, a historical God, a trans- 
cendental God, nay, even a rational and scientific 
God, and it may still be a dead God that we offer. We 
may paint him as liberal and complaisant as the West- 
ern Jupiter, or as dogmatic and cruel as the Eastern 
Moloch, and, failing to attract by the one or to terrify 
by the other, we will still have to cry to the heedless 
and far-off throngs, "We have piped unto you and ye 
have not danced ; we have mourned unto you and ye 
have not lamented. ' ' Even Jesus Christ Himself, who 
appropriated these words to His own ill-success, did 
not get Himself believed and beloved while simply in 
the body, though He was the fullness of the Godhead 
incarnate. Crowned with a constellation of miracles 
and speaking as never man spake, He preached of 
God, yet ended His ministry with the bitter cry, 
"How oft would I have gathered you — but ye would 
not." A few days after and those same Jewish 
peasants filled the air with their penitential cries, and 
by thousands surrendered to God. Behold the reason ? 



12 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

God must be seen upon a Cross ere men will be 
attracted to Him. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
men unto Me" — and He will not thus be seen except 
as He is made to live while He dies in the eyes of all 
the people. 

The world will not be drawn to a crucifix, but 
it may be drawn to a crucifixion, and its vital pre- 
sentation in the burning words of a living ministry has 
never failed to command and convert a multitude of 
men. We must see Christ ere we can make others 
see Him. We are to inspire our souls with the 
silent, adoring, sympathetic contemplation of the 
Christ whom we are to preach, transfigured by the 
Holy Ghost, and blending His image with all our 
thoughts and feelings. His cross must be erected in 
the sanctuary of our hearts ere we can convince men 
of its reality. We can preach about Christ if we have 
some fine words in a paper book on the pulpit, but we 
can preach Christ only when He dwells in us as a living 
and luminous presence, possessing, engrossing, con- 
straining by His ineffable beauty, and sorrow, and 
love, all our powers into the expression by which we 
•offer Him to men. Even in our highest efficiency we 
are compelled to utter the sigh of I,acordaire to his 
friend Montalembert, when the eloquent priest was 
restoring to faith thousands of the young men of Paris 
by his wonderful preaching in Notre Dame, "How 
powerless is man for his fellow-man ! Of all his mis- 
series, this is the greatest ! " We are doomed to see 
the stream of humanity rush past us, in its pride and 
passion, its gaiety and sadness, without hope and 



A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 1 3 

without God ; and even while we gaze a multitude 
have vanished ! But we need not stand with para- 
lyzed faith and fettered energies. L,et the scene drive 
us to our knees and keep us there till we be endued 
with power from on high. We must command time, 
much time for solitude, contemplation of Christ and 
prayer. It is always from lonely heights of medita- 
tion men have come down to move the world. The 
human soul that dreams of spiritual power and reve- 
lation betakes itself naturally to solitude. Not only 
the prophets of Israel, saints of the Thebaid and 
founders of Religion in the mystic Bast have done so ; 
even the Greek Meneander recognized, though he 
sneered at, the phenomenon : ' 'The desert, they say, is 
the place for discoveries. ' ' The Forerunner was there 
prepared for his heraldship and the Son of Man for his 
gospel and His Cross. The singer of the ' ' Divina 
Commedia ' ' betook himself to the lonely convent of 
Fonte Avellana and meditated there the cantos of his 
" Purgatorio, ' ' and St. Francis chastened and replen- 
ished his soul for his mission of sacrificial love in the 
caves and forests of Umbria. We must dwell more 
with God and gain power with Him if we would have 
1 ' power with men. ' ' 

It was by such solitary communion with God and 
the study of the Bible that Savonarola acquired that 
massive personal power, that energy of soul, that im- 
perial will force by which, from his pulpit in the 
Duomo, he ruled Florence. He had little rhetorical 
culture, a bad voice, and, at first, indistinct express- 
ion ; but he was at home with his Bible and his God ; 



14 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

he loved his people, he believed in his divine mission. 
One of his biographers, Burlamecchi, says : ' 'The effect 
of his preaching, both on his hearers and himself, was 
wonderful. He soared into ecstasy and electrified men 
as with sudden shocks. Once, when he preached on 
the Deluge, as he ascended the pulpit, the people saw 
he was laboring under the strongest emotion. Gazing 
across them, he gave out the text, ' Behold I, even I 
do bring a flood of waters upon the earth ! ' The 
words and tone struck terror into every heart. ' ' Pico 
della Mirandola, who was present, relates that a shud- 
der ran through his whole frame and his hair seemed 
to stand on end; and Savonarola declares that he 
himself was not less moved than his hearers. Thus 
Savonarola demonstrates that soul-power counts for 
more than any other constituent element in eloquence. 
It was not his learning nor his logic, but the eager 
embrace of his soul and the vehement pressure of his will 
upon the hearts of the rapt audience that conquered 
and led them in the way of his divinely inspired pur- 
pose. 

If the study of this little book shall shed any light 

upon this element of pulpit preparation and inspire any 
of my brethren with a determination to develop and 
employ this latent Psychic force, something will have 
been done for the furtherance of the Gospel after the 
author has been forgotten. 



Psychic Power in Preaching 



CHAPTER II 



Psychic Power in Preaching 



WHAT depths of mystery and miracle dwell in 
that word ''Power." Who can define it? 
Who tell us where its seat or fountain is ? 
Who measure its dimensions or paint its features or 
analyze its substance ? It dwells in the flashing light- 
ning and falling dew, in imponderable air and mov- 
ing glacier, in growing seed that lifts the rock and 
electric current that drives the train. It swings the 
planets in their cycles and wings a whisper around the 
globe. Physical power is a mystery, but Psychical 
power works greater miracles. A sentiment upheaves 
a nation ; a passion overturns an empire. Soul-power ! 
Who can sing its epic ? What science determine its 
measure or method ? In what ultimate brain-cell or 
blood-corpuscle does it reside ? ' * God hath spoken 
once, twice have I heard this ; that power belongeth 
unto God." And man, whom He has created in His 
own image, humbly shares in this divine endowment. 
I,uther said, ' ' He that can speak forcefully to men 
is a man. ' ' That solitary monk who shook the world 
ought to know. Doubtless he meant by ' ' a man ' ' not 
simply a scholar, nor a homilist, nor a theologian, nor 
a rhetorician, but, in the full, radical and robust sense 
of the word — a man. 

15 



1 6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

Much of the ineffective preaching that courts 
drowsy ears or falls upon the pleased inertness of a 
congregation is lacking in none of the features usu- 
ally assigned in the schools to the model sermon. 
There is truth well and definitely expressed, logically 
compact, adequately illustrated and rightly applied. 
Yet the people are listless. The defect in many instan- 
ces is in the want of the man behind the sermon to 
give it propulsion or the man in the sermon to give it 
human vitality and a grappling, victorious energy. 
Preaching is divine truth plus a man. For half a cen- 
tury the science of preaching has accumulated a large 
and opulent literature. To the garnered wisdom of 
earlier times it has added standard works, periodicals, 
reviews, text-books and lectureships. Yet, it has not 
kept pace with other sciences or with the periodical 
press, much less with the higher secular literature, in its 
grasp of public attention and control of public opinion. 

It is a hopeful sign that the pulpit of to-day is 
less ruled by a bigoted fear of new ideas and methods 
than ever before, and more prompt to recognize and 
utilize whatever discoveries or results real science may 
offer to its hand. 

It is profoundly significant to note the increasing 
interest of our ministry in the New Psychology. 
Emerging from the nebulous condition in which em- 
piricism and superstition rule, psychic phenomena and 
laws are assuming the features and authority of a 
science, and surely in no field may they more properly 
have influence than in the development of the 
preacher's power. 



PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 1 7 

The doctrine of the storage, conservation and 
transmutation of energy, in the physical realm, is one 
of profound interest and importance. It has fur- 
nished a new working hypothesis and larger views 
of God and man. But there is an energy invisible 
but of infinite potency in the psychical realm, whose 
operations are none the less real, and whose study is 
of paramount importance and fraught with stupend- 
ous results. 

As the sources and conditions of psychic energy 
are being uncovered, they are sure to be brought more 
and more within the scope of the preacher's studies. 
The relation between psychological facts and forces 
and the science of preaching is so intimate and vital 
that their consideration cannot be neglected without 
irreparable loss, both in pastoral and pulpit work. 
These facts and forces are, by the scientific men of our 
time, carefully separated from whatever is visionary, 
fraudulent and empirical, and are accessible to fruitful 
investigation. The occult power which produces the 
phenomena grouped under the designations of hypnot- 
ism, mesmerism, animal-magnetism, clairvoyance and 
telepathy is not a modern discovery. Traces of its 
empirical handling may be found in the East many 
centuries ago. The ' ' seer " is as old as human his- 
tory ; the ''magician " has always been a recognized 
fact. His persistence and success are by no means 
to be accounted for on the theory of skilful deception 
practiced on the credulous, the superstitious and the 
weak, or to physical laws unknown to the mass of 
men. There may be — and the experiments of Mr. 



1 8 PSYCHIC POWER IN PRE ACHING. 

Tessla and his co-workers point that way — physical 
media and physical laws yet to be revealed, explaining 
certain marvelous discoveries in the physical realm of 
electrical action ; so in the psychical realm there is a 
power, a medium and a law, whose phenomena are 
abundant, but whose form and content are yet to be 
searched out. It is claimed by skeptics that the inves- 
tigation of these psychical phenomena will be fatal to 
the teachings of Christianity ; but as other develop- 
ments of real science, such as astronomy, geology, 
biology and antiquarian discovery have, in turn, been 
announced as oracles of doom to the Bible, and as each 
has, in due time, blest what it was expected to curse, 
so will the " New Psychology " and the " Society for 
Psychical Research ' ' and all conscientious Science 
prove to be the handmaid of the pulpit. The truth 
has nothing to fear from the truth. 

Experiments, conducted for the last quarter cen- 
tury by many eminent scientists, prove the marvelous 
power which one soul may exercise over another, pro- 
ducing not merely physical movements but mental 
processes and moral emotions in the subject. ' ' If it 
be true," a distinguished psychologist has said, " that 
one mind can influence another and convey thoughts 
and ideas to it without using the ordinary avenues of 
the senses, such a fact is far more scientifically extra- 
ordinary than would be the destruction of this globe 
by another heavenly body." Nevertheless, there is 
abundant and indisputable evidence of the fact produced 
by the several " Societies for Psychical Research," as 
well as other reliable testimony. If mind can thus 



PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 1 9 

influence mind independently of the senses (just as we 
know electrical transmission can be made independ- 
ently of the wire) certainly when we can call in the 
vehicular aid of sight and hearing, with their bound- 
less resources, the pulpit should receive a new impetus 
in the evolution of power. This evolution should be 
in two directions — the increase of psychic force and 
the growth of spiritual power ; and these two are in- 
timately related. 

By the preacher's Psychic Force I mean his per- 
sonal force as distinguished from the force of his logic, 
his rhetoric or of the truth itself, on the one hand, and 
from the supernatural power of the Divine Spirit on 
the other. It is the energy of the preacher* s soul in 
contact with that of the hearer. Says H. W. Beecher : 
1 ' The living force of the living soul upon living souls 
for the sake of their transformation is the fundamen- 
tal idea of preaching. ' ' 

Psychic force is an active element in all effective 
pulpit work. If I were to group the three component 
factors in an effective sermon, they would be : i . 
Adequate presentation of the truth. 2. Psychic Force. 
3. Divine Influence ; and that would be the ascending 
order of their relative importance. This Psychic force 
has its own function and action, as real as electricity 
in nature. Electricity may impel the machinery or 
light the town, but it cannot shape a flower nor make 
the deaf to hear. So psychic force does not reveal the 
truth nor renew the heart ; its function is to quicken 
the soul's pulse, sway the will, awake to action. What 
it is in its essence we are unable in our present con- 



20 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

dition of knowledge to state — just as we are unable to 
determine the genesis and content of electricity. Per- 
haps if traced each to its last retreat we should find 
they had a common birth. The worshipers of light 
in all ages have been the loftiest thinkers and the 
purest livers. He who said, "I am this world's 
I4ght, ' ' at once announced himself the ' ' desire of all 
nations. ' ' But it is only of late that light is found to 
be a form of force, and that it is not a simple element 
but exceedingly complex. It is not incredible that one 
or more of its forms and ingredients may reside, with 
concentrated intensity, in those natures we call ' * mag- 
netic," because they have a mysterious superiority 
over other natures in the way of insight and dynamic 
energy — are able to analyze, to attract, to excite and 

subdue others at will. 

A man may possess a sound mind, be a good soul, 
in both senses, be of a loving spirit and yet possess 
little will power. He may be poured into any mould 
and keep shape in none. On the other hand, a man 
may have but moderate abilities and yet attain great 
success because he possesses a forceful will. It is the 
will that enables a man to project his intellectual pro- 
cesses into the minds of others. A remarkable instance 
of will power in conquering a hearing and establishing 
a permanent control over the minds of men is furnished 
by Benjamin Disraeli in the English House of Com- 
mons. An alien, handicapped by his early avocations, 
at first the House refused to listen to him. "You 
shall hear me!" he cried. And irresistibly he rose 
step by step till he not only swayed the House but the 



PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 21 

nation as prime-minister, with a solid array of the best 
bred Norman-descended patricians of England at his 
back yielding ready obedience to his wishes. 

Examples of this masterfulness may be profit- 
ably studied in the lives of such characters as 
William the Silent, Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon 
I., Warren Hastings, Bismarck; still better in John 
Knox, Luther, Savonarola, Dr. Livingstone and 
"Chinese Gordon." George Dawson, that English 
reformer and preacher, whose varied eloquence so 
powerfully moved all classes of minds, used to say, 
' ' Whenever I address men I determine that they shall 
listen" And they did, with rapt attention to the end. 
William Hazlitt remarks that ' ' The orator is only 
concerned to give a tone of masculine firmness to the 
will, to brace the sinews of the mind. The speaker 
must be confident, inflexible, uncontrollable, overcom- 
ing all opposition by his ardor and impetuosity. We 
command others by power, by passion, by will." 

But while the amount of this power differs in dif- 
ferent men, and is variable in the same man, probably 
none are destitute of it by nature. There are latent 
and occult energies in all our souls that only need the 
excitation of an earnest purpose to impel men toward 
God and the right, and intimate touch with the source 
of all light and power in order to become, like His own, 
effluent, radiating and fructifying. By habitual inac- 
tion or excess such power may become torpid or enfee- 
bled, and by normal exercise and education may be 
developed. A man whose nature is contributive and 
transmissive of moral and emotive life expends power, 



22 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

in a conscious or unconscious way unknown to ordinary- 
mortals. Contact with men taps his psychic reservoir 
just as the ripe olive drips at a little pressure, or the 
frankincense becomes odoriferous at the touch of fire. 
"There are men," says Professor K. P. Thwing, "who 
would exhale a spicy, pungent life, if they knew how 
to loosen and liberate the contents of their being. But 
all their life they are under some physical or social or 
moral restraint. Of course this donative, communica- 
tive nature is partly a gift, but it is vastly more — a 
growth. Thomas Aquinas' s 'Baptisma sanguinis , flu- 
minis, flaminis' will surely melt these gelid and fire 
these fearful souls. They can develop a nature more 
porous and distributive if they would use proper means. 
A man who is in possession of that subtle something 
which enthralls men knows that he can emit or retain 
it. He can husband those psychic forces which are 
peculiarly his own, till he finds himself in conjunction 
with absorbent, responsive souls. Then he lifts the 
sluice-gates of his affluent and exuberant being and 
enriches them with its treasured contents. ' ' 

But many a preacher, who is the life of a company 
of congenial friends, whose conversation at home or 
whose after-dinner speech is contagious wit and vital 
thought itself, finds himself in the pulpit constricted 
in soul and speech. He is no longer a man, hut presto! 
has become a minister, a religious pedagogue, a dig- 
nitary, forsooth, or some other sort of unhuman buck- 
ram, careful to maintain the clerical proprieties and 
not to diminish the proper distance between the 
"pulpit" and the "pews." Confidence, sympathy, 



PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 23 

spontaneity, reciprocity are all wanting, and this not 
with "malice aforethought," but through a false ideal, 
or nervous tension, or want of daily heart- touch with 
his people, or some other cause quite remediable, if he 
wills to be his real self and all there is of him offered 
and sacrificed for the people. 

It is an indisputable fact that the building of the 
sermon in the study, its elaboration as a literary 
achievement occupies almost the whole horizon of the 
preacher's outlook in reference to his pulpit. In addi- 
tion the devout man includes a fervent invocation of 
the Holy Spirit ; but all the time he ignores the value 
and necessity of his own human spirit when in vigor- 
ous action, rallying and compelling the thoughts which 
his pen has armed with words, to move — to march — to 
charge — to fight, hand-to-hand, and to conquer. 

In a large view, and yet a scientific one, it may be 
said that Conception, Imagination, Moral Emotion, 
Enthusiasm and Will, all enter into combination in 
Psychic Force. 

Even in the planning and elaboration of the ser- 
mon we recognize the need of this force; when we feel 
the varying degrees of ability to grapple with the text 
and compel it to yield the treasure that we know it 
hides, the ability to "throw one's self into" the work 
in hand, as we often express it. At times a vital thrill 
pours itself from brain to pen, and the sermon is born 
a living and a holy thing, while at others it seems but 
a well-constructed and decorated dummy, with eyes 
that see not and a tongue that speaks not and hands 
that hold not forth the living bread. 



24 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

But it is especially in the pulpit, confronting the 
people, in the critical hour of all the week for them 
and for him — the expectant hundreds looking into his 
face and ready to be moved, swayed and ruled by his 
message — that the need of psychic energy appears most 
imperative — that personal force, in a word, which 
quickens attention, kindles imagination, awakens affec- 
tion, vitalizes the will and moves all in the direction 
of our purpose. The sermon is not an end in itself ; 
it may not be even a power in itself ; more strictly it 
is a vehicle of power, an instrument through which 
psychic force may produce certain intellectual and 
moral changes. Above all, the psychic energy of the 
preacher is the instrument by which the Spirit of God 
produces supernatural and eternal results. What I^eib- 
nitz says is in a higher sense true of the Divine Spirit : 
<( Uh seul esprit, qui est universel et qui anime tout 
V univers, comme un m£me souffle de vent fait sonner differ- 
ement divers tuyaux & orgue" So the divine breath, 
animating all the universe of souls, will produce very 
different notes from organ pipes dust-choked and 
defective from what it would were every part of the 
human mechanism clean, compact, well- voiced and in 
perfect diapason. Pascal says man is "a thinking 
reed' ' — by which I suppose he means a musical ' 'reed; ' ' 
— but a trumpet-blast cannot be produced upon a flute, 
much less can the orchestral power of the organ come 
from the shepherd's "wheaten pipe." Hence physico- 
psychical development is one of the most important 
parts of the preacher's education. As a sword wielded 
by a nerveless arm will fail of execution, no matter 



PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 25 

how fine its temper or how keen its edge, even so a 
sermon will produce but a still-born assent or languid 
indifference if it is not energized by vigorous psychical 
conditions in the man who utters it. The arrow of 
truth may be a polished shaft, flashing and straight as 
a ray of light, the bow may be an ideal of elastic 
strength, but for accuracy of aim and carrying power, 
all depends on the nerve-force of the archer, a nerve- 
force that has been healthfully generated, and, work- 
ing through a thousand delicate ramifications, gives 
clearness to the eye, tensile grip to the fingers and 
steady contractile movement to every muscle. 

There is a tremendous electric potency stored in 
the human soul when kept in harmony with God's 
will and made the channel of His vital purpose. And 
such a soul, guided by clear intellectual perceptions 
of the truth and moved by a powerful emotion, con- 
stitutes a psychic power which no mere marshaling of 
logic or rhetorical art can produce. It is life, that 
"fiery particle," rl Seivov as Dr. Brown would say. 
Its quantity and quality will largely vary according to 
the constitution and temperament of each man. The 
nervous, sanguine temperament, redundant in elec- 
trical vigor, will possess more of it than the phleg- 
matic nature. There are men susceptible and recep- 
tive who are almost destitute of the power to impart 
force. It may be said in general that a vigorous mind 
in a vigorous body furnishes a basis of psychic force. 
The brain must be healthy, nerves well strung and 
heart strong. From this substructure must spring the 
glow of enthusiasm, the outflow of sympathy, the reso- 



26 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

luteness of conviction and the will to conqtier. As if 
the cells of an electric battery each contained a differ- 
ent acid, and wires from each combined to furnish the 
electric current, so each of the reservoirs of power sup- 
plies its part in generating psychic force in its higher 
forms. 

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has said : " The orator 
— I do not mean the poor slave of a manuscript, who 
takes his thought chilled and stiffened from its mould, 
— impassioned speaker who pours it forth corruscating 
from the furnace — the orator only becomes our master 
at the moment when he is himself captured, taken pos- 
session of by a sudden rush of fresh inspiration. How 
well we know the flash of the eye, the thrill of the 
voice, which are the signature and symbol of nascent 
thought — thought just entering into consciousness, in 
which condition, as in the case of the chemist's ele- 
ments, it has a combining force at other times wholly 
unknown!" 

The experience of such a hearer, swept along by 
the torrent of the speaker's fervor, is familiar, but I 
think Dr. Holmes is mistaken in the idea that this is 
the only or supreme conquest of the hearer. Equally 
sure and more enduring in results is that deliberate 
girding of the soul to a life grapple with an audience 
by a calm, steadfast pressure of the heart and will to 
bring their minds and affections into subjection and 
response. 

When Ole Bull, the fascinating violinist of world- 
wide fame, on one occasion had melted a great audience 
to tears, he said, speaking of it to a friend : ' ' Do you 



PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 27 

know that I do not produce these effects by the mere 
sound of my violin? I produce them by a direct action 
of my mind upon the audience. I employ the tones of 
the instrument simply for the purpose of opening the 
channels through which I, myself, act upon their 
hearts. ' ' Here is not the rush of a transient inspira- 
tion, carrying all before it, but a deliberate purpose 
steadily pressing forward to accomplish its end. 

Talma, the tragedian, used to say that thinking 
and feeling made the largest part of his art. To move 
requires not only what Cicero calls ' * the eloquence of 
the body, ' ' but that of the emotions as well. The inti- 
mate relation between thought and language ; between 
feeling and its true, yet varied, modes of expression; the 
wonderful symbolism of a heart yearning to communi- 
cate itself : all prove how profound and subjective are 
the sources of power in preaching. Nor can we over-esti- 
mate the value of this spontaneous impulse or vigor- 
ous determination to grasp the hearer's mind and heart 
with our own, to project our thought, emotion, will, 
into his. In how many cases where the argument is 
complete and the style ideal is the sermon powerless 
because the insinuating, embracing and resistless force 
of a glowing heart, a blending sympathy and a reso- 
lute will are wanting to the whole demonstration. 

The following words of M. de Cormenin, in ad- 
dressing a body of French preachers, may properly 
close this chapter, as it is full of lively suggestion and 
in the line of our thought : 

" Select with a quick and confident instinct, from 
among the methods available to you, the method of 



28 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the day, which may not be the most solid, but which, 
considering the disposition of men's minds, the nature 
of the matter in hand — may be the best adapted for 
making an impression on your audience. 

1 'Take strong hold of their attention. Stir up their 
pity or indignation, their sympathies, or their pride. 
Appear to be animated by their breath, all the while 
you are communicating yours to them. When you 
have in some degree detached their souls from their 
bodies and they come and group themselves of their 
own accord at the foot of the pulpit, riveted beneath 
the influence of your glance ; then do not dally with 
them, for they are yours, your soul having, as it may 
be truly said, passed into theirs. I,ook, now, how 
they follow its ebb and flow ! how they will as you 
will ! how they act as you act ! But persist, give them 
no rest ; press your discourse home — and you will 
soon see all bosoms panting because yours pants ; all 
eyes kindling because yours emit flame, or filling with 
tears because you grow tender. You will see all the 
hearers hanging on your lips through the attraction of 
persuasion ; or, rather, you will see nothing, for you 
yourself will be under the spell of your own emotion ; 
you will bend, you will succumb under your own gen- 
ius, and you will be more eloquent the less effort you 
make to appear so. ' ' 



The Personal Factor in Preaching 



chapter iii 
The Personal Factor in Preaching 

A YOUNG Jewish peasant stood beneath Judean 
heavens and said, "I am the truth." Only 
One could have said that without madness. But 
as we study His history in the gospels and in the ages, 
we recognize Him as the Son of God and Son of Man, 
Source of eternal life and light. 

The personal Christ still lives in that Gospel of 
which he said, ' ' The words that I speak unto you, 
they are spirit and they are life." The word which 
the preacher is called to hold forth is distinctively 
1 ' the truth as it is in Jesus. ' ' So completely is the 
personal quality and quickening interblended with the 
message, that while it takes dogmatic, scientific and 
philosophic forms, its most real and, indeed, its only 
perfect expression is through the preacher's own char- 
acter and life to the degree in which Christ dwells in 
him. The truth must not come alone through the 
laboratory of his brain, but must be a living product, 
conceived and carried in his soul, growing and strug- 
gling toward birth — a living thing into which the man 
has poured the warm blood of his heart and the energy 
of his will. Some preachers are scarcely more than 
talking manikins ; the sermon is no more a part of 
them than the telephonic message is a part of the wire 
which conveys it. 

29 



30 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

The true preacher utters his message as one of the 
consummate results of his personal knowledge ; it has 
the arterial blood-streak of experience ; in a finite 
and secondary way he is the incarnation of the truth, 
even as Christ was in an original and infinite way. 
For this reason the book can never supplant the 
preacher. 

It was the large infusion of this personal force 
that made the throng press around Paul at Athens, 
and Chrysostom at Constantinople, and Savonarola in 
Florence ; and it is the same with every preacher that 
draws men to God — with Robertson of Brighton, and 
Spurgeon of London, and Brooks of Boston, and 
Beecher of Brooklyn. The multitudes have not 
wearied of preaching, but only of the average preacher. 
I^et any man put a large, loving, vital manhood, rich 
with the humanities, into his ministrations, and peo- 
ple will respond to him. The preacher's soul is a 
prism through which the white and dazzling light of 
spiritual truth passes, and receives in passing human 
coloring and refraction along the lines of human want 
and sensibility. * Truth is transmuted into life only 
through personality . / 

The preacher's personality is not obtrusive, hardly 
objective, in his pulpit work : in so far as he is self- 
conscious he is weak, in so far as egotistic he is offen- 
sive. In his self-forgetfulness, his abandon, is the 
hiding of his power. He who confronts an audience 
with "lam Sir Oracle ' ' depicted in his manner or 
message, only amuses or repels ; the personality of 
which we speak reveals itself in spite of him, and is felt 



tHE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 3 1 

by the audience like an invisible radiation or intangible 
perfume. In revelation, the prophet, poet, historian, 
evangelist, apostle is recognized by the careful stu- 
dent by his individuality. He is not a mere type- 
writer obeying the divine finger-touch. 

The sermon is a birth from two worlds — the 
father is divine, but the mother is human, even as it 
was with Christ, " the Truth," in the beginning ; and 
it bears the features of the heavenly and the counte- 
nance of the earthly parentage. A wholesome, virile, 
genial character, therefore, will impart itself to the 
sermon ; the same is true of one that is weak, vain 
and sordid. Emerson says : ' ' The reason why we feel 
one man's presence and do not feel another's is as sim- 
ple as gravity. This is a natural force; the light, heat 
and all nature co-operate with it. " So it may be said 
character is an element with which the light, warmth 
and energy of truth co-operate and, as by an elective 
affinity, impart and receive, reciprocally, quality and 
tone. 

Herein we see the need of genuineness, disinter- 
estedness, strength, spirituality, and — in a word — 
Christlikeness. What he is as a man is of primary 
consequence ; what he will be as a preaching man is 
dependent on that. Some men grow in theologic and 
rhetoric fullness and felicity without a corresponding 
growth in manfulness, and will orate about truth and 
charity while consciously or unconsciously false, self- 
centered and self-circumferenced. Such a man is 
sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. 

The building of character is the highest ideal and 



32 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the most serious work of life. In the preacher it is 
not completed when he begins to be a builder of char- 
acter in others. He is bound to raise the volume and 
value of his own manhood to its highest perfection. 
He must be educated manward, as well as Godward, 
through the whole range of his tripartite nature. 

To this end the physical basis of manhood must 
receive attention. Herbert Spencer says : ' ' He that 
with men is a success must begin with being a first- 
class animal." The Abbe* Roux quotes a lecturer in 
Notre-Dame as saying: "If one wishes to preach 
well one must have the devil in one's body." If he 
had added, "and God in his heart," we should have 
seen more clearly his point. Robust and surgent ani- 
mal force and instinct, such as spring from splendid 
health and natural passions, are a huge element of 
power in the preacher, when reined and guided by the 
dominating power of the Spirit of God. The interdepend- 
ence of the mental and even the spiritual with and 
upon the physical is such that the culture which im- 
proves the organs and regulates the functions, en- 
larges muscle and toughens sinew, will, at the same 
time, develop brain, broaden the soul and invigorate 
the will. An erect, elastic, graceful and firm bodily 
condition has no small effect in inducing alertness, 
beauty, decision and firmness in mental and moral ac- 
tion. The healthful action of all the vital and nerve 
forces gives to the speaker an added poise, dignity and 
reserve power which are of high value in acting upon 
an audience. When both mind and body are in action t 
their reaction on each other is especially felt. The 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 33 

audience also will take critical measure of the preacher 
from without. His physical appearance and move- 
ment is to them an indication of character. Muscular 
integrity is a natural ally of moral wholeness. Robust 
health and vigorous movement are generally magnetic. 
Mental and moral power sometimes proceed from a 
man who, like Robert Hall, is a martyr to physical 
pain, but as a rule the aspect and tone of the physi- 
cally feeble are at a discount on his impressiveness. 
There are men a large part of whose magnetism is in 
their fine, impressive physique, men who command 
attention largely by a massive figure, a noble bearing, 
a masterful air and an organ-like voice. 

Courage also he needs, the courage of conviction, 
of the faith which sees the invisible ; the courage of 
his calling and commission as an ambassador of Christ. 
He must dare to be independent of ' ' isms ' ' and 
" ologies." The courage not only to do but to suffer 
must be his. When that knightly preacher, Robert- 
son, of Brighton, was warned by a woman that his doc- 
trines would expose him to ostracism by the author- 
ities of the Church of England, he calmly answered : 
"I don't care!" "But, Mr. Robertson," was the 
ominous warning, "do you remember where 'don't 
care' brought the man?" "Yes," said he, with 
utmost seriousness, "to a cross." To every brave 
preacher the pulpit will be both a cross and a throne. 
Crucified to self-interest and to fear of men, he attains 
a sovereignty over men's souls. When the aged 
Horatius was told his son was fleeing from the combat 
which decided the supremacy between Alba and Rome 



34 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

and, seeing his indignation, they asked him what his 
son should have done against three, the old man re- 
plied, "He should have died!" A sublime answer 
springing from a great soul and bearing the man above 
all the weakness which pleads within us against self- 
sacrifice for the truth. Of all the legitimate objects of 
contempt, none is more conspicuous than a timid, com- 
promising or neutral minister. The poet Crabbe is 
represented, in the Rejected Addresses ; as illustrating a 
type of neutrality not altogether extinct when he says : 
* ' In the view of life and manners which I present, my 
clerical profession has taught me how extremely im- 
proper it would be, by any allusion, however slight, to 
give uneasiness, however trivial, to any individual, 
however foolish or wicked." On the other hand, the 
spirit of a Chrysostom, a Savonarola and a John Knox 
still lives in a multitude of men, who daily illustrate a 
fearless independence as champions for God and hu- 
manity. By courage I do not mean the sang-froid of 
ignorance and conceit, nor the stolidity of the stoic in 
whom contempt of others is a shield, but the rational 
and modest courage of conviction, faith and self-abne- 
gation. 

The secret of many a man's failure to rule others 
is not in the weakness of his cause or of his logic, but 
of his own spirit. When Admiral Dupont was explain- 
ing to Admiral Farragut the reasons why he failed to 
enter Charleston harbor with his fleet of ironclads, 
Farragut listened till he was through, and then said : 
"Dupont, there is one reason more." "What is 
that ? " "You did not believe you could do it ! " It 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 35 

Has been said that a surgeon ought to have * ' the heart 
of a lion and the hand of a woman," and it is certain 
that the physician of souls needs a relentless fortitude 
as much as delicate tact and yearning compassion. 

While his mission brings with it many fears which 
oppress the stoutest soul — leading even a L,uther to 
pause trembling at the foot of the pulpit stairs — yet 
there are many things to inspire his courage. Among 
these is the beneficent relation he sustains to his peo- 
ple and their trust in him. He is to them a father, or 
at least an elder brother. An apostle of grace, as 
well, he stands there in " the solemn joy of responsi- 
bility," and ministers to people who are saying in 
their hearts, ' ' We are all here present before God, to 
hear what He will say unto us through thee." He 
ought to be courageous who knows that he is repre- 
senting a throne of infinite authority and love ; who 
preaches to save, and who hears resounding through 
his soul the word of God to Moses, ' ' Certainly I will be 
with thee, ' ' and of Christ to his heralds, ' ' I am with you 
always. ' ' If, at times, surveying the vastness of his 
task in turning men to God, and the smallness of his 
native powers, his soul cries out, ' ' Who is sufficient 
for these things ? " he has only to survey his spiritual 
allies to shout in triumph, ' ' I can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth me!" Above all, 
what courage ought he to have who is consciously 
borne upon the tide of infinite power in the direction 
of God's supreme plan, purpose and work for man's 
salvation ! L,ike the Gulf Stream, which in the great- 
est drouths never fails and in the coldest regions never 



kR 



36 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

chills, displacing with its majestic course waters might- 
ier than the Amazon and Mississippi combined, so that 
divine current ' ' which makes for righteousness ' ' is as 
much broader and mightier as the heavenly is superior 
to the earthly, and is able to carry him on to results as 
incalculable as they are supremely glorious. 

The preacher should possess leadership as a per- 
sonal trait. An English statesman once said that the 
great need of the people was for men of ' ' light and 
leading. ' ' There are men of light — some of them even 
belonging to the higher illuminati — who fail in effi- 
ciency because deficient in leadership, and there are 
men able to lead, who, being lurid but not luminous, 
destitute of the true light in themselves, lead men into 
a wilderness or over a precipice. L4ght and leading 
combined make the safe and successful preacher. As 
a man of serene and spiritual life he interprets to 
human souls the eternal, divine order and the meaning 
of life — reveals to men their heart and God's heart as 
well. He is, through the light that is in him, the 
poet of human nature, the prophet of human attain- 
ment, the guide of human aspiration. It is because 
he addresses himself, like his divine master, to human 
nature's deeper wants that he gains a hearing. His 
message articulates the low, trembling whispers that 
wander through the soul, he brings from afar faint 
memories of a bygone purity and bliss, he lifts the 
veil of the future and gives man a glimpse of another 
and eternal order of things. 

' ' He points to higher worlds 
And leads the way. ' ' 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 37 

He needs to be masterful as an Alpine guide, to have 
the generalship that inspires confidence and heroism 
for righteousness. Such a leader was Arnold of K 
Rugby, and Chalmers, and Robertson, and Gordon^ wM'fc 
vSuch a leader will have that self-reliance which gives 
robustness, elasticity and firmness in utterance and 
action. Self -distrust is weakness ; a consciousness of 
strength is impressive upon an audience, when 
it is not colored with self-importance or diluted 
with self -consciousness. " Be not dismayed at their 
faces," is addressed to the modern preacher as 
well as to the ancient prophet. His power of lead- 
ership must be comprehensive. A stern and vehement 
man, like Peter the Hermit, may be needful for a great 
crusade against the vices that infect society or the des- 
potisms that trample on souls, but a brotherly leader- 
ship that inspires men to the daily conquest over in- 
dolence, and procrastination, and selfishness in an 
unheroic life is more needful. The light that shines 
from him must not be the flaring torch of fanatical 
radicalism any more than the cold, electric shining 
through opal shades of criticism. It must be the 
glow of sympathy which wins while it illumines and 
inspires to effort while it reveals duty, even like that 
fair guiding Star in the East, ever leading to a new 
birth of Christ in the cradle of the coming years. 

He must be a man of strong and settled convictions. 
He must have reached conclusions in which his judg- 
ment, conscience and whole heart firmly rest. If a 
man's love rebels against his logic, if his doctrine and 
his conscience clash, he is to that extent crippled. 



38 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

There are men who are never quite sure. They seem 
to consider every question an unsolved problem, every 
doctrine held by the fathers open to suspicion. Such 
men may entertain by their aerial balancing — they 
cannot lead. In a certain trial Daniel Webster said 
of the argument of his opponent : " Gentlemen of the 
jury, this man neither alights nor flies forward. He 
hovers. Why does he not meet the case ? " We have 
too many preachers who merely hover over the great 
questions of doctrine, life and destiny, who neither fly 
forward nor alight, and who think the highest philo- 
sophical glory is in holding things in solution and 
never announcing a conclusion. More than one 
preacher might be the original of a flashlight picture 
a parishioner made of his late dear pastor : " He was 
a nice old man with an evenly balanced mind : one 
part of his mind thought he would and one part 
thought he wouldn't." A strong personality means 
a rooted and muscular confidence in the great verities 
of the Gospel and in man's susceptibility to them as 
the power of God unto salvation, aye, as the foremost 
power in the world, having always the ' ' right of 
way, ' ' as invested with the prestige of splendid super- 
natural triumphs in the past and unwasting energies 
for the future. 

That was a bold reply of Mirabeau to the king's 
messengers, when, speaking on behalf of the French 
Assembly, he said : " Go tell your master that we are 
here by the power of the French people, and that it 
shall not be wrested from us except at the point of the 
bayonet ! " But the preacher can say : "I am here 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 39 

in the name and by the authority of God ; O earth I 
earth ! earth ! hear the word of the I,ord ! ' ' More- 
over, he is backed by eighteen centuries of learning, 
and virtue, and victory, all springing from the Gospel, 
by more than ten millions of martyrs who have died 
and unnumbered heroes who have lived to attest the 
truth of what he proclaims ; he is the exponent of a 
fact the most stupendous and a force the most irresist- 
ible in the history of the race, and he is the tongue 
which a present God uses and to which he says : 
" Speak, and be not afraid, for I am with thee." If 
these things be rooted in his soul and have become 
native to the soil of his thought, he will not lack 
power, and will often say with Bossuet, ' ' The human 
heart is the most indomitable of all things, and when 
I see it conquered by the truth I triumph and adore." 
Another trait the preacher should possess and 
cultivate is freshness of feeling. This is a virtue which 
the men most eminent in the world's varied life, and 
who have shaped the thought of their day, have pos- 
sessed. It reveals itself in their art, their poetry, 
their literary work, their statesmanship and pre-emi- 
nently in their platform and pulpit. I have only need 
to mention the names of Shakespeare, Burns, Michel- 
angelo, Mozart, Gladstone, Beecher, Guthrie and 
Spurgeon to bring up portraits of men who suggested 
a perennial youth of heart and brain. A sympathy 
with the ever new phases of the natural world, with 
brightness of sky and bloom of earth, a quick inter- 
est in the passing panorama of the world's current his- 
tory and moral trend, an active and influential partici- 



40 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

pation in the social and civic reforms of his day, and 
especially in the movements that interest the young 
people, all will impart zest and heartiness, marrow and 
momentum to his preaching. 

True, the faithful minister carries many burdens ; 
his contact with the seamy side of human life has 
much in it to age him, the tragedy of the world's sin 
and the weariness of its sorrow, the ponderous prob- 
lems connected with the kingdom of God and the 
stress of men's daily wants have a tendency to wear 
out his freshness of delight in life and produce a pre- 
ternatural gravity, if not grimness of spirit. These 
influences he must conquer. Really there is no life so 
joyous, as there is no vocation so elevating, as that of 
him ' ( who bringeth good tidings and publisheth 
peace." His mission brings him into relations of 
moral beauty and pathos and inspiring hope and ten- 
derness with a multitude of all ages and conditions, 
who look trustfully and affectionately up into his face. 
If he be a normally strong and healthy spirit, the de- 
lights of his vocation never stale ; every phase of his 
calling, every period of his ministry, supplies some new 
charm and inspiration. He should be 

"A man of cheerful yesterdays and bright to-morrows. '* 

It is true there are preachers who grow stereotyped, 
whose hearts grow prematurely gray and whose brains 
become a mere dusty sermon factory. Their minds 
and their discourses are not a blooming and moist 
garden full of fresh perfumes, but like a herbarium 
among whose dried flowers even the Rose of Sharon 
seems to have a stale and musty odor. Their smiles 



THE PERSON AIv FACTOR IN PREACHING. 4 1 

are solemn and studied, their tears are deliberate, they 
excite themselves mechanically, their passion is theat- 
rical, their pathos is warmed over, in their thunder 
you hear the rattle of the sheet-iron and they rise on 
the pinions of eloquence like the tame eagle when dis- 
turbed from the perch. Praxiteles gave animation 
to the marble statue ; they petrify living truths. 

But a man may keep his brain and heart forever 
fresh and springlike by drinking of the river of God's 
pleasure, in nature, in human life, in the life especially 
of the young, entering with sympathy into their jubi- 
lant spontaneity, hopefulness and good cheer, above 
all, by browsing in the perennial dewy and blooming 
fields of the living Word. 

A certain quality of vigorous youthfulness may 
be gained by an original and natural communion with 
the real world of human activities and motive forces, 
keeping in the living current of to-day's thinking and 
passionate ambitions. The man of affairs must not be 
lost and submerged in the student, the dreamer. 
Much, to be sure, may be learned of the phases of 
human life and the working of men's passions from 
our libraries. Poets like Shakespeare and Goethe and 
philosophers like Bacon and Plato may open to us, if 
we are critical students, much that is valuable in this 
realm ; history may set before us illustrations, ideals 
and models ; teachers may suggest to us methods of 
study, but all these helps will not take the place of 
close contemplation of the concrete and living speci- 
mens of humanity among whom we move. What is it 
we say to all who would learn to paint ? We tell them 



42 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

they will never learn by copying ; they must draw 
from life and paint in the open laboratory of the mas- 
ter-painter, the Sunbeam ; they must see and record 
with their brush what they see ; then they will be true 
and, therefore, ever new in feeling and expression. 
The mere copyist never paints either with pen or 
pencil that which is his own or that moves the heart 
by its novelty or reality. A habit of looking deeply 
into natural phenomena, of studying springs of action, 
the psychology of life and character, will impart 
breadth and richness and perennial freshness to our 
currents of thought and emotion. 

Freshness of feeling will also be preserved by 
maintaining a healthy appetite and digestion. Dys- 
pepsia and the worries that wait upon its leaden steps 
are terribly ageing. Care for the hygienics and 
athletics of his entire nature will reward him openly. 
He must not only work faithfully, but play regularly ; 
must not only gird with mighty tension, but relax and 
rest at frequent intervals and give himself abundant 
sleep. Even the all-enduring camel must have his 
burden unloosed at night, but many a preacher never 
lays aside his heavy pack ; he carries his church 
burdens the whole twenty-four hours and the whole 
twelve months through, and is writing sermons and 
settling disputes and raising church debts in his 
dreams. Is it any wonder that his soul grows seedy, 
and that he becomes mentally round-shouldered and 
decrepit ? 

The preacher's work, to one who loves it, whose 
soul is free-moving and eager in it, is itself an in- 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 43 

spiration. It contains in itself, in its very processes and 
habits, direct and wonderful power to invigorate body 
and soul. When we consider the intimate connec- 
tion and interdependence of the mental and physical 
realms of our nature, this ought to be manifest. The 
stimulus the body receives from the awakened, girded, 
active mind, the gladdened heart and the upborne 
soul in its entirety ought not to be other than refresh- 
ing to the whole nature. 

Passing upward, I remark that the preacher 
should have a consecrated personality. In a material- 
istic and ambitious age this consideration is none too 
popular. In the pulpit work (and pastoral work as 
well) of many a popular but powerless and perplexed 
minister this is the one thing lacking. When the 
necromancers of the middle ages were spending their 
days and nights in experimenting toward the making 
of gold by chemical process, it used to seem to them 
that only one thing was needed to crown their efforts 
with complete success. Often their combinations 
would seem to demand but a single substance to pre- 
cipitate or crystallize into golden metal. But this one 
substance they never found, and so their mortars and 
crucibles contained nothing precious. Somewhat sim- 
ilar to these worthless compounds lacking only a sin- 
gle element, are those pulpit ministrations which omit 
"for Christ's sake" from their strivings after success. 
This is the one thing which combines all thought and 
effort in a divine result. The one thing whose absence 
leaves but a poor residuum. An audience can com- 
monly detect the absence of this element of highest 



44 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

worth. Christ enthroned in the heart, every ambition, 
every personal aim, every effort concentrated in a 
sublimely humble surrender to His purposes, His 
love inflaming, constraining — this is power. Christ 
shining in the life is eloquent and persuasive ere the lips 
are opened, and is felt warming and illumining all the 
utterances of the lips. The explanation of the marvel- 
ous pulpit power of certain men of very modest talents 
is in one word — consecration. 

Bring your heart and brain and tongue, each 
time you prepare to preach, and each time you ascend 
the pulpit to God's altar, and invoke the hand of fire 
to be outreached to take them and hold them while 
you proclaim the message of Him whose you are and 
whom you serve. The living force of a self -forgetful, 
sacrificial soul, pressing, urging itself upon other souls 
for their impregnation with the truth and their trans- 
figuration from the dark and sordid life of the flesh in- 
to the true life for which Christ made and redeemed 
them, is indeed a spectacle for angels and men. And 
this was Paul's conception of preaching when he said : 
''For tho' ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ 
Jesus, I have begotten you through the Gospel." (i 
Cor. iv: 15.) 

This predominance of the personal factor marked 
the apostolic age of victory over the nations. The 
Holy Light was in them, and Christ had said : "Let 
your light so shine before men that they may see your 
good works and glorify your Father which is in 
heaven." They shone as lights in the world. "They 
brought to bear upon that corrupt age not only the 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 45 

searchlight of absolute truth, but the influence of clean 
hearts and lives ; upon an age of glittering shams they 
brought to bear the penetrating power of a character 
and life vital and vigorous with eternal realities ; upon 
the darkening and dying faiths of their day they 
flashed the energies of a triumphant Faith, both in 
God and human redemption, and they created a new 
social conscience and wrought marvelous transforma- 
tions in that first century, not by exploiting a new social- 
ism, nor by the subtleties of theology, nor by the fasci- 
nations of a gorgeous ceremonial, but by the witness 
of lives beautiful with philanthropy, sublime with 
self-sacrifice, commanding with the courage of convic- 
tion and inspiring with enthusiasm for humanity." 
And there are men not a few in our day, who are the 
worthy successors of these apostolic preachers ; they 
are in the line of the true and only ' 'Apostolic Succes- 
sion. ' ' 

The personal factor might be said to comprehend 
almost all others. As the recovery and rebuilding of 
men upon a Christly model are the preacher's great 
business, the structure of his own character and the 
style and tone of his own life must play a conspicuous 
part. The chief thing, indeed, that a man contributes 
to his age is his tone. The ' 'dignity of his profession' ■ 
can avail him little if his personal quality is effeminate 
or false ; the grandeur of the truth he represents can- 
not conceal a narrow or timorous soul, even though a 
man swagger in the pulpit like a Bombastes Furioso. A 
character that, mountain-like, swells from deep, broad, 
interior foundations, rock-anchored in the immutable 



46 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

verities of God, and rising toward heaven in spirit- 
uality, while spreading out in genial humanities toward 
the whole world ; or, to change the figure, a manhood 
that finds its springs, like the Mississippi, among 
heaven-lit peaks, and flows down, gathering many a 
rivulet and stream, and, deepening, broadening, flows 
majestically to the ocean of Eternity, making every- 
thing live where it goeth — such a personality will prove 
a psychic force in preaching. 

Such a personality is to be developed. It must be 
remembered that the compilation of all that he has 
learned in college and divinity -school cannot construct 
that type of the effective speaker which Aristotle 
(Rhet. lib. 2, cap. 1) indicates as embracing "man- 
liness, kindliness and wisdom," any more than a 
mechanical arrangement of a child's block alphabet 
can evolve a poem. Nor can a man dream himself 
into such a breadth and independence and geniality of 
character as he may covet ; he must hammer and 
forge himself into it through the fires of the Holy 
Spirit, and the study of such men as a St. Paul, a 
St. Francis of Assisi, a Chalmers, a Guthrie, a Rob- 
ertson, a Kingsley, a Gordon, a Phillips Brooks, and 
other typical men, and, above all, by a perpetual com- 
munion with the ideal type of manhood — the Christ, 
who, ' 'holiest among the mighty and mightiest among 
the holy, lifted the gates of empires from their hinges 
and turned into new channels the course of the ages. ' ' 



Commanding the Attention 



CHAPTER IV 



Commanding the Attention 



HE who possesses the art of awakening and hold- 
ing the attention is a " Master of Assemblies.* ' 
Psychology has concerned itself largely with 
the results of attention — only of late have its laws and 
mechanism been carefully studied. As a factor in pul- 
pit work, its importance, from a psychological point of 
view, can hardly be over-estimated. The attention 
may be said to underlie all other mental operations, so 
that its genesis and characteristics and phenomena are 
an essential part of the preacher's study. 

An adequate definition of attention would involve 
the quotation of a number of authorities — a ' 'composite 
photograph" which, even if practical, would be con- 
fusing ; but every one of my readers sufficiently 
understands what the term means. It is the bringing 
of the consciousness to a focus in some special direction. 
It embraces all degrees, from the momentary and 
languid thought given to a passing remark, to the 
state of complete absorption known as ' 'ecstasy. ' ' It 
is subject to every degree of intensity and duration. 
Whether considered objectively, as directed to external 
things, or subjectively, as directed to internal events, 
it is required to convert sensation into that grasp of 
particulars which constitutes perception. Without 

47 



48 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

attention we have meaningless and inconsequent 
revery instead of coherent and productive thought ; 
nor can we conceive of any act as being strictly vol- 
untary or intelligent without its direction. Hence the 
Psychology of the Attention is a study of the highest 
importance to those who would by persuasive speech 
lead men to action. It should be studied as a science. 
As a feature in the course of Homiletics in our 
divinity schools it has been given a scant and inci- 
dental regard ; it should have a more full and specific 
treatment. A candidate for ordination is carefully 
examined as to his orthodoxy, but if he were asked to 
define attention and state how he could go about 
awakening and holding the attention of a congrega- 
tion, he would probably be quite nonplussed, or at 
least give crude and unscientific answers. And yet 
this is a primary and essential factor in pulpit address. 
To preach without awakening and holding the atten- 
tion is but a waste of energy and a squandering of 
thought. 

The attention is the "coupling" by which the 
locomotive draws the train ; if there is a ' 'missing 
link" there, the engine, though well built and well 
driven, spins away in rattling isolation, leaving the 
passengers in provoking immobility. To awaken and 
retain the attention is, therefore, imperative to suc- 
cessful preaching. There are sensational and empir- 
ical ways of doing this, and also others that are in 
harmony with the constitution of the mind. 

Attention has been defined as "the concentration 
of consciousness, or the direction of mental energy 



COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 49 

upon a definite object or objects." Its mode of opera- 
tion and the effects produced by it may be compared 
with the concentration of visual activity upon some 
definite part of the field of vision, and the clearer per- 
ception of that limited portion which is thus obtained. 

The preacher's work is to make men first see 
things, then feel them, then act upon them. If the 
first result is not gained, the others, of course, fail ; 
often if the first is obtained the other two go along 
with it. The Arabian proverb, "He is the best orator 
who can change men's ears into eyes," has application 
here. 

There are two qualities of attention — intensity and 
duration — which are characteristic ; their combination 
at the same moment raises it to its highest condition. 
We must distinguish between spontaneous and voluntary 
attention. The former is natural and primitive ; the 
latter is mechanical, artificial, the result of education. 
The former is the basis of the latter ; and both are to 
be found in every degree of development, from the 
feeblest to the most intense. A part of the preacher's 
science is to be able to discern the degree of voluntary 
attention in his congregation — when it begins, when it 
increases, when it declines and when it ends. This is 
not easy, but a degree of facility and proficiency may 
be gained by study and observation. He will fail in 
carrying his hearers with him if he has not this tact, 
that is, if he is not in conscious and intelligent touch 
with them ; he must throw out his mental tentacles 
(which should be electrical), or, better, he should sink 
from the pulpit to the pews his sympathetic grappling- 



50 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

hooks and "get hold" of the people, or he might as 
well stop before he begins. 

He must reckon with the actual human material 
with which he has to deal. He stands before a mass 
of faces and forms clothing an infinite variety of souls 
— conscious, egotistic factors — each an independent 
organism, an animate cosmos, in which involuntary 
attention and sensation are found largely foreign to his 
own. Could he study, as in a vitascope, the psychic 
condition and movements of the average auditor, he 
would see a constant coming and going of thoughts, 
images, events, incidents, and emotions, which follow 
each other in no rational order, but mingle with or 
expel one another according to some law of association 
which psychologists as yet only partially comprehend. 
It may be, in a degree, compared to a kaleidoscopic 
effect — forming, unforming, reforming various combi- 
nations, only with different elements. His business is 
to clear the field of these native vagrants by the 
orderly invasion of his marshaled and moving ideas, 
images and arguments. 

He cannot mould the individual or the mass as if 
it were plastic clay, or even in the fires of his fervor. 
Men are sensitive, volatile, evasive; many of them 
ignorant of and indifferent to the things they most 
need to be persuaded of. To many the message is "a 
thrice- told tale," or it is not congenial to their mood 
or prejudices. Not a few, as soon as the text is 
announced, lock their doors and close the blinds from 
an unconscious or active antagonism to what they 
think is coming. In some there is a chronic mental 



COMMANDING THK ATTENTION. 5 1 

indolence or vagrancy of thought, some are dull and 
slow-witted and some cold and unemotional. He is to 
adapt his methods to reach each and all. 

The capacity and readiness of attention are largely 
a matter of education and habit. With people trained 
to think consecutively, to observe objects and events, 
to compare, contrast and draw conclusions, it is at its 
best. 

But the exercise of the attention is not always pro- 
portionate to its capacity. The cultured are often so 
surfeited, so blasS, so self-complacent or so fatigued 
with more exciting or pleasurable mental occupation 
that they yield only a languid attention to the 
preacher's voice. Men and women of society are so 
fagged with the dissipations of the week that it is 
hard to arouse in them a quick interest in the message 
of the Sabbath, while with many the browsing of the 
interminable Sunday newspaper has tired their brain 
to begin with. On the other hand, men and women 
whose daily routine of humble toil presents little to 
waken or satisfy the mind often make excellent 
listeners if the theme and its treatment be attractive 
to them. To awaken attention, we must concentrate 
and hold the hearer's mind to a given idea, or train of 
ideas, to the exclusion of those others, many and va- 
grant, which normally or accidentally fill his horizon. 
It means an effort on the part of the speaker, and a re- 
ciprocal effort on the part of the hearer. His atten- 
tion becomes the voluntary subjection of his entire 
mental and physical activity to his own use in har- 
mony with that of the speaker. It involves a unity of 



52 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

consciousness ; the whole being converges toward the 
object presented, and is held in captivity — ears, eyes 
and limbs, and almost the very breath are under the 
same spell. 

The speaker has not won the attention when there 
is merely a decorous quietness, an uplifted face and 
even a " hearing ear " ; for just as a man may read a 
page of a book and not derive the slightest impression 
from it, because his thoughts are elsewhere, so in 
listening to a discourse. " People habituate them- 
selves, ' ' as Bishop Butler says, ' ' to let things pass 
through their minds, rather than to think on them. 
The great number of books and papers of amusement 
have in part occasioned, and most perfectly fall in 
with this idle way of reading and considering things. 
Review and attention, and even forming a judgment, 
becomes a fatigue." 

If this was true when written in 1729, how much 
more is it applicable to the mental habits at this begin- 
ning of the twentieth century, dissipated and feverish 
through the daily and desultory browsing over the in- 
terminable field of a cheap and often sensational press. 
He who would command attention from the pulpit 
must not underestimate the difficulty of his task. 

What, then, is the process by which voluntary 
attention is gained ? Prof. Ribot * says: ' ' It may be re- 
duced to the following single formula : To render attrac- 
tive by artifice what is not so by nature, to give an 
artificial interest to things that have not a natural in- 
terest. I use the word ' interest ' in the ordinary 



* Psychologie de l'Attention, Chap. 2. 



COMMANDING THK ATTENTION. 53 

sense as equivalent to the paraphrase — anything that 
keeps the mind on the alert. But the mind is only kept 
on the alert by the agreeable, the disagreeable or 
mixed action of objects upon it, that is by emotional 
states, with this difference, however, that here the 
feelings that sustain attention are acquired, super- 
added, not spontaneous, as in primitive manifestations. ' ' 
"The whole question," says he, "is reduced to the 
finding of effective motives ; if the latter be wanting, 
voluntary attention does not appear. ' ' 

To arouse attention we must awaken pleasure, 
pain or surprise. The themes the preacher deals with 
are intrinsically adapted to this end, more, indeed, 
than any others, but it is not what things are, but 
what they appear to be, that awakens interest, and 
the eyes of the human understanding are naturally 
darkened by sin so that the ' ' things that accompany 
salvation ' ' do not appear in their true colors and pro- 
portions, but obscured and distorted. Through Satanic 
devices men are led to think evil good and good evil, and 
through the glamour and fascination of things purely 
secular, the supreme greatness and glory of things 
spiritual are eclipsed, and even through passion or fear 
they become repulsive. Human nature has not 
ceased to turn from the sublime teachings of Christ 
with the cry of impatience or contempt. " This is a 
hard saying ; who can hear it ? " Christ is still to the 
multitudes ' ' a root out of a dry ground without form 
or comeliness, and there is no beauty that they should 
desire him." Now, just as a man incapable of pleas- 
ure or pain would be incapable of attention, so, unless 



54 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

we can awaken surprise, pleasure or pain by specific 
psychological methods, we fail of gaining attention. 
Voluntary attention must be excited by novelty ad- 
dressed to the senses and through them to the intellect 
and the emotions, and thus calling into action the 
will which, with effort, purposely or unconsciously, 
bends the whole man to that which is thus presented. 
This impulsion of the mind in attention is not steady 
like the pressure of the trolley arm upon the wire, it 
is, rather, intermittent like the oscillation of a pendu- 
lum. Continued tension speedily exhausts the power 
of listening. To preserve its freshness and elasticity 
there must be momentary rests for the mind to 
unbend ; it will return enlivened. Voluntary atten- 
tion, in its durable form, is really a difficult state to 
maintain. The speaker should remember that. There 
is always an effort and a feeling of effort. When 
this is reduced — as the skilful speaker knows how — 
to its lowest point, voluntary attention approximates 
to the spontaneous, and so can be held to its work for 
a longer time. We only do that easily which we do 
unconsciously. 

Sometimes attention is grafted upon a purely 
selfish feeling — as the hope of reward or fear of punish- 
ment, but there must always be an emotion prompting 
to physical effort, an action of the will both summon- 
ing the mind and inhibiting distraction. As attention 
always depends on emotional states, we must contin- 
ually keep this in mind. In man's physical organiza- 
tion the states designated as needy appetite f inclination , 
desire, constitute the true basis of emotional life. As 



COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 55 

these have become more or less mental habits, atten- 
tion does not depend wholly upon present causes, but 
upon an accumulation of primary causes. (Ribot.) 
Habitual motives thus have acquired the force of 
natural motives. The work of the preacher is also 
aided by what psychologists call ' ' anticipative atten- 
tion" or pre-attention. Happy the preacher to 
whose well-known brightness and life the expectant 
people turn, as house-plants to a sunny window. A 
man of established reputation for brilliancy, wit or 
even eccentricity will be met, on confronting his audi- 
ence, with this pre-attention, and is likely to hold it, 
for obvious reasons. Without these exceptional gifts, 
a preacher may secure a measure of the same advan- 
tage by winning the confidence and affection of his 
people and the community by his constant, wise and 
sympathetic intercourse with them. Force of char- 
acter, moral strength and geniality combined, personal 
magnetism and even a reputation for pith and brevity 
will secure this anticipative attention. 

In general, it may be said, attractiveness is the 
sceptre of attention. It may reside in personality, in 
subject, in delivery, or in all three. The subject, of 
course, is of supreme importance. If it does not make 
a natural appeal to men's hunger and thirst, to their 
hearts and homes, it is almost impossible to secure 
attention, even though the preacher's personality and 
elocution be attractive in a high degree. Bigness is a 
prominent law of attention ; it is always attractive 
even when not pleasing. Advertisers understand 
this, and all business is conducted on that principle. 



56 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

Pettiness is the bane of our pulpits. A fraction of a 
verse, with a fragment of pretty poetical sentiment 
drawn from it, as a silken thread is spun from a co- 
coon, satisfies the preacher, and the drowsy people 
permit it. The men who command attention deal 
with the great, vital questions which affect the men 
and women of to-day for weal or woe, and they treat 
those questions, not in an empirical, narrow or 
abstruse, but in a concrete and practical way, yet 
always with the magnifying and interpreting light of 
gospel teaching and of eternal issues. I^ike God, they 
see everything in the present, yet with an infinite 
perspective and in the broad search-light of the 
Judgment Throne. The preacher must be at once 
prophet and herald. " Never forget," said Phillips 
Brooks to the Yale theological students, ' ' that you 
are above all things else heralds. ' ' He is to declare 
"the kingdom of heaven is at hand" — "the king- 
dom of God is within you." He must treat the 
" powers of the world to come " as projecting them- 
selves into this world, right among the marts and 
factories and politics and schools and amusements and 
homes of his own neighborhood. 

People are not greatly interested by things in the 
remote future ; " the life that now is " absorbs them, 
but they can be made to see its greatness. They are 
not attracted by pictures of their dying hour, but are 
eager to know how to live happily and successfully. 
They are attracted by crystallized demonstrations — 
the abstract and metaphysical bore them. It grates 
upon men to be asked to assist in the slaughter of some 



COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 57 

comatose heresy when they are hungering for the 
solution of the problems of their daily life. They look 
listlessly upon the rearing and buttressing of a totter- 
ing theological dogma, but they prick up their ears at 
a trumpet-call to nobler living with strong hands held 
out to help them. 

Another law of attention is brightness and intensity. 
The intensity of a sensation influences the amount of 
attention given to it. Sermons should be constella- 
tions — they are too often like the milky-way. An- 
other law is the manifest sincerity of the speaker and 
the heart-force that touches the most indifferent. You 
sometimes hear men of whom you are convinced that 
they do not believe, or at least do not realize, a word 
they are saying. David Hume, when charged with 
inconsistency in going frequently to hear Rowland 
Hill, said, ' ' I like to hear sometimes a man who be- 
lieves what he says. ' ' The accent of conviction and 
the blood-streak of experience have a fascination that 
is wanting in the most decorative theories. People 
wake up when they not only hear of the historical 
Christ, living in Judea twenty centuries ago, but see 
the living Christ shining through the minister's face 
and sermon as through a lattice, and scent the per- 
fume of the Rose and the I^ily fresh from the gardens 
of Heaven. 

Another rule is, create expectation and surprise, 
Charles Spurgeon used to say, ' ' Take the people in a 
way they did not expect, let your thunderbolt drop 
out of a clear sky, cultivate what Father Taylor (the 
New York preacher to sailors) called ' the surprise 



58 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

power, ' avoid long introductions, leap into your sub- 
ject, let your first sentences have something striking 
in them, vary your speed, dash like the lightning, 
move calmly like the flowing river, use the bass notes, 
the clarion tones, be conversational, be dramatic, have 
variety — that is what human nature craves. ' ' 

Command of the attention will be affected by the 
structure of the sermon. As I shall treat of that under 
the ' ' Psychology of Style ' ' in the next chapter, I 
will confine myself here to one or two general princi- 
ples : First — order and unity. Some one has said that 
sermons might be divided into two classes — "verte- 
brate and molluscous." With the latter there seems 
to be no framework on which it is built, and it might 
as well be delivered from the middle to both ends. 
Sermons of the molluscous kind discourage the hearer 
before they have been rambling long. It is impossible 
to keep up the attention. To concentrate thought the 
discourse must be vertebrate. We do not want to see 
the anatomy, but we want to know that it is there. 
Phillips Brooks says, ' * The true way to get rid of the 
bonyness of your sermon is not by leaving out the 
skeleton, but by clothing it with flesh. Give your 
sermon an orderly, constant progress, and do not hesi- 
tate to let your hearers see it distinctly, for it will help 
them, first, to understand, and then to remember what 
you say." 

While George Herbert in the Country Parson 
warns us against ' ' crumbling up a text into small 
parts, by which a passage ceases to be Scripture and 
becomes a dictionary, ' ' I am convinced that a clear 



COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 59 

statement, in the exordium, of the main points of 
which the preacher means to treat, is adapted to keep 
up a livelier interest than the modern practice, which 
might be called the evolutionary style. 

A lively curiosity may be excited when a presti- 
digitator draws out of his mouth an indefinite length 
of ribbon, and the attention is kept up by its seeming 
endlessness, but exactly the opposite effect is produced 
by the flow of discourse in which there are no resting 
places and no breathing spots. The divisions should, 
however, be few in number and show unity and prog- 
ress. By these milestones the hearer will know that 
you are hastening toward a goal, " Semper ad eventum 
festinat. ' ' The attention is fagged by detail and dis- 
cursive matter. Cecil used to say, "Above all things, 
disencumber a sermon. ' ' 

Now this we may do by a clear plan before 
we begin — what have we to say and what limits will 
we fix to our subject ? We must not commence our 
voyage till we have a distinct course on the chart and 
a near and definite port in view, and the hearers should 
expect that. 

' ' Firstly ' ' and ' ' finally ' ' should be joined by suc- 
cessive links, and they should be few. A sermon should 
be like the grape-vines of California, which are not 
grown for ornament, but for fruit. The branches and 
foliage are "cut back " close to the stem, which itself 
does not rise above your head, instead of wandering 
over a high trellis ; and so you have the big, purple 
bunches of fruit which one can gather right at hand. 

Most men put too many distinct thoughts into a 



60 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

sermon and go too much into detail. They are afraid 
of repeating the same thought even in a different dress, 
or of appearing too limited in their range, or too simple 
and elementary. We must remember that we are 
not addressing an audience of savants, but men, women 
and youths, who, outside their own profession, trade 
or home duties have very vague and inadequate ideas 
of the subjects that to us are familiar and of which we 
can take in a wide horizon at a glance. The charm of 
some of the greatest preachers, like Chalmers, was in 
clinging to a few points and holding up new phases of 
them till the people saw them clearly. 

Indeed, an eminent preacher when asked the secret 
of effective speech said, ' ' Repetition — repetition — repe- 
tition." A Supreme Court Judge said to Mr. Finney 
(Autobiog. p. 85), " Ministers do not show good sense 
in addressing the people. They are afraid of repeti- 
tion. Now if lawyers should take such a course they 
would ruin themselves and their cause. ' ' ' 'When I was 
at the bar," he added, " I learned that unless I did so 
— illustrated and repeated and turned the main points 
over — the main points of law and evidence — I should 
lose my case." The Duke of Wellington, speaking of 
an eminent British pleader, said, u When Scarlett ad- 
dresses a jury there are thirteen jurymen." The 
secret of winning in such a case the ear of a jury by 
implicating your thought, your predilections, your 
questionings with theirs is equally available as an ele- 
ment of pulpit power. 

The preacher should not ignore the physical basis 
and conditions of attention. The activity of the brain, 



COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 6 1 

the quickening and continuity of its physical move- 
ments, are conditioned by the activity of its circulation. 
Professor Ribot observes that the blood is to the gray 
matter of the convolutions what oxygen is to the 
burning fuel: it is at once an imperative need and a 
natural stimulus. ' ' The consciousness, ' ' he says, ' ' will 
fail to respond to any impression, if the circulation be 
impeded or lowered below a certain amount." It fol- 
lows that as physical conditions enter largely into a 
man's actual power to think consecutively and with 
concentration and interest, they should be studied. 
Drowsiness, vagrancy of mind, dullness of perception, 
mental languor and fatigue are, thus, the inevitable 
results and concomitants of an imperfect circulation. 
The presence of carbonic gas in an ill-ventilated audi- 
torium and a temperature too cold or too warm are the 
enemies of attention. Demosthenes or Paul could not 
interest a partially asphyxiated or half- frozen audience. 
And then there are distractions from uncomfortable 
seats, garish decorations, giggling choirs, fretful chil- 
dren and outri attires, all helping to make the preacher's 
task embarrassing. 

Since attention is so shy, capricious and easily 
distracted, the preacher must catch it when it is most 
free from burden. Sometimes the audience is tired 
"before the sermon begins. Where intelligence, unction 
and brevity control the order of service they stimulate 
and lead up to the sermon, but they are often unduly 
elaborated. By the time the organist has achieved his 
"prelude," the chorister finished his programme, the 
hymns read and sung, the Scriptures read and expound- 



62 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

ed, the "long prayer" completed, a volume of notices 
read with comments, the attention of the people has 
been occupied nearly an hour. If the worship that 
precedes the sermon be full of life, unity and original- 
ity of thought and fervor of feeling, it should be an 
uplifting preparation of the mind and heart for the 
sermon that follows, and this the wise preacher will 
secure. 

Attention and quickened emotion are reciprocal. 
The preacher has the whole diapason of the motives on 
which to play — as a skilful organist, he must under- 
stand his keys, stops and combinations. His congrega- 
tion includes every variety of life, every degree of 
sensibility to impression. His ability to gain the at- 
tention of the larger number will rest on his confining 
his art to the simple and universal feelings in which 
all share alike. Such are curiosity, hope of gain or 
pleasure, fear of loss or pain, love of freedom, of rest, 
of companionship, life in all its pleasurable forms — in 
other words, the egoistic sentiments. Rising higher, 
though reaching a more limited number, we may ap- 
peal to the sentiments of justice, benevolence, sympathy, 
social responsibility, patriotism, mercy, enthusiasm 
for humanity — in other words, the altruistic sentiments. 
Rising still higher, and reaching a still smaller number, 
we have the moral emotions — love of the good, the 
beautiful, the true; the sentiment of honor, nobility, 
magnanimity, of the special obligations and privi- 
leges of the prosperous and the strong. Pleasure in the 
harmony of things, yearnings for an ideal state, all 
these in all their combinations form the wide range of 



COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 63 

motives and emotions which will on the one hand pro- 
duce attention, and on the other receive development 
and vigor through the result of attention. 

We can detect the degree of attention by noticing 
the stillness or restlessness of the congregation, for its 
direct effect is a concentration of physical movements. 
A state of immobility prevails. There is an adapta- 
tion of eyes, ears and muscles, a tendency toward con- 
centration of consciousness and concentration of move- 
ments. As Nature enlivens our attention by her in- 
finite variety, so the attention is held by frequent transi- 
tions from the didactic to the pictorial, from affirma- 
tion to interrogation, from description to dialogue, 
now a quotation and now an anecdote, now a verse of 
poetry and now a flash of humor, sometimes a deliber- 
ate pause, especially after a passionate passage, and a 
new commencement in a different key, the quiet con- 
versational manner following fiery declamation. All 
these variations tend in the same direction of relieving 
and, therefore, freshening the attention. Attention 
cannot be gained by hammering the Bible, nor scream- 
ing at the people. Often a whisper or an emphatic 
pause is very effective. We should remember also the 
psychic power of the eye in this connection. A silent, 
searching and penetrating look wakens the attention 
when words have failed. George Herbert says, ' ' The 
Country Parson, when he preacheth, procures attention 
by all possible art, both by earnestness of speech and 
by a diligent and busy cast of the eye among the 
auditors, with letting them know that he observes who 
marks and who not, and with particularizing now to 



64 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the younger sort, now to the elder, now to the rich, 
now to the poor, this is for you, and this is for you; 
for particulars touch and awake more than generals." 
I conclude with the remark that attention will 
largely depend on the good- will and love of the hear- 
ers. If the preacher possesses those magnetic qualities 
which Aristotle specifies (Rhet. lib. 2. cap. 1), which 
may be rendered, Manliness, Kindliness and Wisdom, 
he has won half the battle to begin with. If the peo- 
ple know he is not speaking in a perfunctory way, nor 
as a schoolmaster, but as a father, brother, friend; and 
especially if they know, from experience, that he will 
not lose them in a labyrinth of speculation, but lead 
them by a short, direct path to living fountains ; if he 
preach as one who knows what he and his sermon are 
about, and has something that has to be said, and that 
he intends to be listened to, they will listen ; they know 
that he will say plainly, frankly and briefly what he 
has to say, and stop when he has said it, and before 
they want him to. That man will have practically 
solved the problem of commanding the attention. 



The Psychology of Style 



CHAPTER V 



The Psychology of Style 

IN the preceding chapter we have shown that the 
Attention is the coupling by which the hearer is 

drawn after the speaker — the gearing by which all 
the machinery of his mind and heart is kept in motion 
by the speaker's power. Unlike material coupling and 
gearing, however, it is neither of iron links nor leather 
bands, but as fragile as a spider's web. We are con- 
cerned, then, to see that no unnecessary strain is put 
upon it. The attention is with most, not only limited, 
but capricious and impatient ; easily distracted, easily 
wearied. Hence, if we would get our message over 
the hearer's telephone before his ear is removed from 
the transmitter, we must study the psychology of Lan- 
guage as well as of thought. 

Herbert Spencer, in his profound and analytic 
essay on the Philosophy of Style, says: "Regarding 
language as an apparatus of symbols for the convey- 
ance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical 
apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its 
parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In 
either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine 
is deducted from the result. A listener has, at each 
moment, but a limited amount of mental power avail- 
able. To recognize and interpret the symbols pre- 

65 



66 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

sented to him requires part of this power ; to arrange 
and combine the images suggested requires a further 
part, and only that part which remains can be used 
for realizing the thought conveyed." Keeping this 
law in view, it is clear that simplicity, lucidity and 
directness of address, both in vocabulary and rhetoric, 
are of primary consequence. As in the transference of 
electrical energy, it is important to avoid waste in the 
process, so there is no more important problem in the 
transmission of thought than how to produce a maxi- 
mum of impression with a minimum of tax on the 
attention, since whatever mental energy the hearer 
expends in getting at the speaker's meaning leaves so 
much less for grasping the value of his thought. 

The familiar mot of Talleyrand, " Language is a 
vehicle for concealing thought, ' ' derives all its point 
from the fact that though words are the windows of the 
mind, they are not absolutely crystalline, but varying 
through all degrees of transparency down to actual 
opacity. Hence within a limited range Pantomime 
or Picture Language has a superiority over words. 
Thus, the beckoning or repelling hand, the pointing 
finger, the dilating eyes and raised eyebrows, or the 
shrugging shoulders — each conveys thought with a 
swift vividness that defies etymology. 

Coming to words, — an ejaculation, " Oh ! Ah ! " 
with their inflections, or a single word, as ' ' Wretch ! ' ' 
1 ' Horrors ! ' ' ' ' Huzzah ! ' ' could not, in elaborate 
sentence, find paraphrase. 

Seeing, then, that in language we have an organ of 
impression that is, at best, an imperfect transmitter of 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 67 

our thought and emotions, we should seek to discover 
the psychological laws by which attention may be 
economized. According to Herbert Spencer, "The 
friction and inertia involved in the application of rhe- 
torical machinery to the mind, reduced to its lowest 
point, indicates the secret of style. The choice and 
arrangement of words and sentences, the right intro- 
duction of imagery, and all figures of speech, the use 
of quotation, even of omission and pause, are all in- 
volved in the process. ' ' 

In a rich and mosaic language like ours, there is 
wide scope for selection of words, the law of selection 
being fitness to the subject discussed and the audience 
addressed. For the work of the preacher the simplic- 
ity and force of Saxon-English has commended it to 
all experts in the Science of Speech. It is terse and 
transparent, robust and rugged, picturesque and illus- 
trative. It abounds in monosyllabic and dissyllabic 
words, whose sound suggests their sense more fre- 
quently than any other language. It is near neigh- 
bor to primitive language, it is the dialect of youth 
and of the common people, and what it lacks of the 
elegance of the French or the grace of the Latin and 
Greek it makes up in vigor and grip of the attention. 
It is even most approved for ordinary address by the 
cultured, and is a characteristic of the writers and 
speakers who have commanded the ears of men in 
modern times. It is pre-eminently adapted to preach- 
ing, which is not a work of art, but an effort to con- 
vince and persuade through manifestation of the 
truth. 



68 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

If the secret of effective style be in the economy of 
the attention, we should select words as brief and 
sentences as concise as clearness and perfect expression 
of the thought will allow. Hence words of one and 
two syllables are to be largely used . Thus : ' ' Return to 
thine abode " may be more smooth, but " Go home" 
is more vigorous. " 'Tis yours to live," is a flash- 
light sentence, while ' ' I,ife is the privilege and pre- 
rogative of all men, ' ' tires the mind as an axiom. Saxon 
being the language of our earlier and more impression- 
able years, the power of association makes such words 
more vivid than the I,atinisms, Hellenisms and 
Gallicisms with which the language of the schools 
is leavened. 

Nothing pleases, arouses and rests a congregation 
like the vernacular of the heart. An illustration of 
the liveliness and force of monosyllabic Saxon is found 
in the familiar words of Goldsmith: 

" As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form 
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm : 
Though 'round its base the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head! " 

Translate that into sesquipedalian and slow- 
moving latinity, and we shall see how nerve and vigor 
degenerate into dropsical feebleness, thus: " As some 
stupendous mountain that elevates its magnificent pro- 
portions develops its dimensions as it emerges from 
the valley and intermediately surmounts the tempest : 
the rolling clouds may gather around its foundations, 
but perpetual luminosity envelops its apex. ' ' In the con- 
trast it seems absurd, yet it is such grandiose turgidity 



THE PSYCHOIyOGY OF STYI,E. 69 

that is sometimes heard from the pulpit. If the 
Frenchman's mot, ( 'l,e style c'est 1'homme," be true, 
then it is to be feared there is a vein of pomposity in 
not a few preachers. Addison speaks of a man who 
1 ' wrote upon the sublime in a low and grovelling 
style, ' ' and truly it is appropriate sometimes to carry 
the emotions of the hearers gradually upward to our 
thoughts by words that have in them a sonorous maj- 
esty. 

It is sometimes better to say ' ' magnificent ' ' than 
"grand," or "illimitable" rather than "vast," but 
for the ordinary work of the pulpit the Saxon mono- 
syllable is most forceful. It has an advantage, also, in 
being often descriptive, the symbol picturing the idea 
to the mind. Note such words as ' ' split, crash, gloom, 
roar, click, croak. ' ' There is this additional advantage, 
that such words adapt themselves to the speaker's 
elocution with more ease than those which are more 
arbitrary and complex. 

Again, and for the same reason, a vocabulary that 
abounds in concrete rather than abstract and in specific 
rather than generic words will enliven the attention 
and save extra mental exertion. DeWitt Talmage is 
a conspicuous example of such a style, carried, perhaps, 
to excess. To illustrate: "The assembling of a mul- 
titude of townspeople to listen to the discussion of 
current political issues is an interesting study to the 
public-spirited citizen. " Translate into the concrete: 
" To see the farmers and shop-keepers, bankers and 
lawyers, the hobbling veteran and gaping school-boy 
flocking to the town common to hear Major Jones's 
talk on tariff and taxes is a study to the patriot. ' ' 



70 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

Economy of attention is next secured by the right 
' ' assembling ' ' of words in clauses and of clauses in 
the sentence. Our rhetoricians furnish many rules 
for composition with a view to transparency and ele- 
gance, but one does not need to understand the gar- 
dener's art in order to have a fine flower-bed, nor does 
he need to memorize rhetorical rules in order to clothe 
his thoughts in fitting style; natural taste and instinct 
will come to the aid of an educated judgment and the 
study of the best writers. To this the extempore 
preacher will need to add the constant exercise of the 
pen, which is the instrument of thought and gives 
orderly march to the mind; if it be neglected, the style 
becomes vague and slovenly; with it not only will his 
vocabulary become enriched, but in the collocation of 
words he will acquire facility. ' ' His words, like so 
many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at com- 
mand, and, in well-ordered files, as he would wish, fall 
aptly into their own places. ' ' ( Mii/Ton, True Eloquence. ) 

In the arrangement of predicate and subject the 
attention is excited more effectually by pronouncing 
the predicate first, especially as it determines the in- 
teresting fact about the subject. Thus: " Sweet are 
the uses of adversity." "Heroic is the spirit of sacri- 
fice, ' ' instead of ' ' The spirit of sacrifice is heroic. ' ' 
Again, the qualifications of the subject should not be 
multiplied, for the attempt to simultaneously remem- 
ber them requires a mental strain that is fatiguing, 
and hence the effect is weakened. 

The matter of climax should be carefully observed. 
Lord Kaimes, in his Elements of Criticism, tells us that 



TH3 PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 7 1 

"to give the utmost force to a period it ought, if 
possible, to be closed with the word that makes the 
greatest figure." But such a rule will have many 
exceptions. Intelligent experiment with various 
arrangements of the words and clauses will reveal the 
one that is the best. A general rule may be followed, 
however, that the subordinate parts of the thought 
should precede and lead up to the main thought and 
thus avoid a reaction of the attention, which is always 
weakening.* 

Again, concentration is to be studied. If brevity 
is the soul of wit, not less is it the life of speech. The 
Abbe Roux says, ' ' Thoughts are fruit and words are 
leaves; let us strip off the leaves in order that thought, 
thus exposed to the light, may gain strength, beauty 
and flavor." We would rather say, thin out the 
leaves when they hide the fruit and exhaust the 
strength of the vine, but let us not forget that words 
are the nursing mothers of thought. 

In the next place the various forms of imagery 
and word-painting give force to style. Not as an 
ornament are they to be used, but to increase the 
quickness of perception, to stimulate attention, imag- 
ination and emotion, to open the gates of the soul to 
the invasion of thought. They carry burdens that 
the mind is thus relieved of. In a metaphor a whole 
paragraph of explanation is condensed. It is easier to 



* There is a style like that of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
where the writer sees the totality of a sentence or passage and then pro- 
jects it entire. And there is another like Shakespeare's who, as Coleridge 
("Table Talk") says, " goes on creating and evolving B out of A, and C out 
of B, and so on, just as a serpent moves, which makes a fulcrum of its 
own body and seems forever twisting and untwisting its own strength." 



72 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

grasp part of a thing than the whole; thus: "banners 
of omnipotence' ' is more striking than ' ' armies of 
omnipotence." When the speaker says "like," the 
attention starts up to meet the simile. For example: 
' ' Iyike a thunderbolt from a clear sky fell the ver- 
dict." Sometimes the simile comes last; as, "The 
Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. ' ' The 
force of these and other images is in the surprise and 
pleasure they awaken by associating objects in nature 
and life with facts that we want vividly seen. Care 
must be taken, however, to avoid overloading with 
elaborate descriptions or redundant figures — excess is 
always weakness. It is well, often, to give a mere 
hint of the image and sometimes to omit the formal 
comparison, leaving the imagination to outrun the 
speaker's expression and fill the gap, — a thing always 
gratifying to the hearer. We must always be sure 
that the illustration really illuminates, and is within 
the range of the hearer's comprehension. If the light 
that is within our illustration "be darkness, how 
great is that darkness ! ' ' There is a marvelous 
charm and witchery in that style which may be termed 
dramatic-pictorial, the bringing-up the scene as if it 
were going on before the eyes — "word-painting." 
"Painting," says Coleridge, in his Table Talk, "is 
the intermediate somewhat between a thought and a 
thing," and it applies equally to word-painting and 
that of the brush. A picturesque style is the most 
vivid for putting ideas in the luminous concrete. The 
improvisatore, the impassioned conversationalist, un- 
consciously uses this power, and without it, in some 



THB PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 73 

degree, eloquence cannot exist. This power of word- 
painting is born more of nature than of art, and, 
though the most powerful of the forces which the 
preacher can put in motion, is, strange to say, the one 
that is most neglected. He who cultivates and uses 
this has an infinite range before him and mighty- 
forces at his command. It was when Thomas Guthrie 
adopted this style (though he carried it to excess, as 
he afterward confessed) that he found his great pul- 
pit power. 

Quotations from eminent writers or preachers 
always awaken interest and lend authority to expressed 
thought, and poetical quotations that are both illustra- 
tive and brief are effective with most hearers; they 
must, however, be rare, both in quality and quantity. 
There is force in giving to Scripture incidents a mod- 
ern setting, a familiar face. Mr. Moody, among mod- 
erns, is an adept in this line. By all means the trite, 
stereotyped and tame should be shunned. I would 
give, however, no encouragement to a style that seeks 
effect by startling eccentricities. There is an extrava- 
gance of expression and a garishness of illustration 
that is worse than tameness. Some sensational preach- 
ers court the ears of a curious crowd by lowering the 
style of pulpit address to the level of the Optra bouffe. 
The mania for "wild and whirling words" is con- 
tagious, and not a few of the preachers, imagining 
that ' ' the pulpit is losing its power, ' ' believe they 
can demonstrate the contrary by stunning the senses of 
their hearers with flaming superlatives and rhetorical 
rockets. Simplicity must never degenerate into silli- 



74 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

ness, nor must flash be mistaken for force. "The 
expressions of thought," M. Jules Claretie has some- 
where said, " should be a little like lightning, — rapid, 
luminous and electric, and the more of this rapidity 
and electricity it has, the longer — unlike the light- 
ning — it will last. 

Few things are more effective than anecdote when 
brief and pithy; few more demoralizing when wrongly 
used. Christ used anecdote as well as other forms of 
illustration, but how apt, how luminous! The abuse 
of anecdote in these days of abundant lay evangelism 
is a conspicuous evil; its effective use is a matter of 
keen discrimination and of true oratorical tact. 

Illustrations in general are like windows to a 
house, but they should be such as let in and let out 
uncolored light. They should not be fanciful, or far- 
fetched, or foreign to the hearers' appreciation. 
Nature in her infinite variety, human nature in its 
familiar traits, social life, current events, every-day 
objects of the home, the shop, the farm, the street, 
are more easily comprehended and more effective than 
those from the realm of history, science or literature. 
The latter are, however, eminently appropriate to a 
well-educated congregation; and, indeed, may be made 
effective with the uncultured if rightly handled. Intro- 
ductions and supplements to illustrations should be 
eschewed. Illustrations should be like sheet-light- 
ning — quickly come, quickly gone — but lighting up 
the landscape. 

An illustration can often be condensed into a 
word, e. g., "the rust of neglect" — "a vitriolic 



THB PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 75 

sneer" — or into a brief clause, as where Dr. Guthrie 
says, "A selfish man whose heart is no bigger than 
his coffin, — just room enough for himself," or the 
French wit, Rivarol's criticism of Condorcet, "He 
writes with laudanum on lead paper. ' ' Could a whole 
chapter describe so well a soporific and sodden style ? 

Most valuable illustrative material in compact 
form is found in the proverbs of all nations and ages. 
They are cut gems of practical wisdom that, in the 
setting of a sermon, shed lustre. 

In general, we may say that the preacher, like the 
poet, must speak the language of our common human- 
ity, not the dialect of a class. He is to please, not 
the few cultured in the congregation, but all; and the 
natural style, that which springs from the depths of 
sincerity, earnestness and affection, which is the child 
of reality, will be the realistic and effective style. 
" When we meet with the natural style," says Pascal, 
" we are highly delighted, because we expected to see 
an author and we find a man." Contact with men's 
actual experiences, observation of the incidents lying 
all around one's path, open eyes and open heart, a 
companionship with writers who have seized and held 
the attention of mankind, — Shakespeare, Walter Scott, 
Wordsworth, Dickens, Le Sage, I,a Fontaine, Guthrie, 
Robertson, Beecher, Talmage, Spurgeon, Brooks, 
etc., — all differing, yet all presenting some features 
that a student can easily grasp, will go far to develop 
a psychic style. 

Dr. Guthrie says the aim of style is "to prove, 
to paint, to persuade; " it remains, then, to speak of 



76 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the adaptation of language to these ends; they each 
have their own place, and neither should be over- 
looked. 

A style should be exact in definition; it should 
hold out in open hand the point to be proved, and 
then its logical process should be compact, — no loop- 
hole for doubt to insert its sword-point. For the 
proving of a proposition, elaborate sentences and 
arguments should be shunned. Here, brevity and 
condensation are jewels. Nothing is so wearisome as 
overdoing in the process. There are men who do not 
think they have proved a thing till they have cor- 
ralled all the known proofs in the world, and to make 
weight, have heaped on top all the analogies, and the 
mind is overburdened and confused. As you listen to 
some men enlarging the proofs of a self-evident propo- 
sition you feel like uttering the rebuke the Athenian 
populace hurled at the rhetorician, who began his 
harangue with the praises of the strength and prowess 
of Hercules, ' ' Does any one doubt it ? ' ' Cut short 
the reasoning and paint the whole matter to the 
imagination and feeling, so as to lead to action. 

People are largely moved by their imagination 
and sympathies. We must carry them along familiar 
ways of thought and then beyond them. Sometimes 
a word will awaken in the hearer a lively picture of a 
scene or object, and if we associate our thought with 
such a memory, we have made an impression. To 
raise the curiosity on the instant by some surprise, 
interrogation, exclamation or apostrophe throws open 
the gateways of fancy. An effective style must 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 77 

always have regard to this powerful ally in the effort 
to persuade. As a rule, the onset should be bold and 
vigorous, that the audience may catch a glimpse of 
the strength of your position. ' ' I prefer, ' ' says 
Montaigne, " those writers who level the first charge 
against the strongest doubt. I look for good and 
solid reasons to come after. ' ' 

What shall we say of the craving for originality 
in the aspiring preacher ?— originality in modes of 
thought and expression? It is to be commended — 
with discrimination. Only the lower order of minds 
are content to travel in the worn ruts of convention- 
ality and axiom. But originality, like happiness, is 
apt to elude those who seek it directly and for its own 
sake. In avoiding the stereotyped they may only fly 
to the eccentric; the fear of being commonplace has 
driven men into the outlandish. Montesquieu says, 
''When people run after smartness, they capture silli- 
ness." (Quand on court apres V esprit, on attrape la 
sottise. ) But if a man would be original in a safe, 
sensible and sane way, let him make an independent 
and absolutely free study of the great facts which 
cluster around the soul, which have their centre in 
the Cross and their circumference in the eternities; 
let him closely and perpetually study human nature 
with his own eyes and through the eyes of its great 
interpreters, and above all, its divine interpreter, the 
Bible; let him go forth and patiently study the infinite 
variety and freshness of Nature's symbolisms; let him 
descend reverently and sympathetically into the depths 
of Christ's sacrificial soul; let him wed his heart and 



78 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

thought to the actual and true in human life to-day, 
and he cannot be commonplace. 

There is no Pierian Spring like that fount which 
the lovely bosom of nature offers to her true children. 
If a man be natural and perpetually replenished, he 
will be sufficiently original to be true. If he be arti- 
ficial, he is an imitator, whether he knows it or not. 
True originality is unconscious, simple and child-like 
in its spontaneity and modesty. 

Psychic energy in style is that quality which 
gives a sense of power in the speaker or in the truth 
he speaks, and thus forces attention to the subject in 
hand and stamps it on the mind of the hearer. It 
belongs to that force of nature, thought and character 
which are pre-eminently personal. Strong character 
generates strong thought, formulates a strong style in 
composition. This is the general rule, but specific 
interferences of an abnormal and conventional charac- 
ter may limit its universal application. 

A psychic style possesses that vital, sympathetic, 
human relation to a man's language by which he 
makes the words personal to his own idiosyncrasy, 
fills them with his own quality and tone of feeling and 
gives his hearer the vivid consciousness of being in 
direct electric touch with a living, sensitive, mental 
and spiritual force. If he wields the vocabulary as 
something outside of himself or decorates himself in 
rhetoric, as in a garment, he does not fulfill this idea. 
' ' Style, ' ' says Schopenhauer, ' ' is the physiognomy of 
the mind , and is a safer index to character even than 
the face." A psychic style is the identification of the 
man with his thought. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 79 

The great source of energy of style is energy of 
thought. A certain largeness of nature is essential. 
A man may be, as Pascal says, "a thinking reed," 
but a trumpet blast cannot come out of a flute. A 
man may be both logical and instructive, and his style 
still lack psychic energy. Cicero the philosopher and 
Cicero the orator are like different men. ' ' You say 
thus and thus," calmly affirms the writer. " Do you 
mean to tell us thus and thus ? ' ' demands the impas- 
sioned speaker. The writer asserts that ' ' the excesses 
of Catiline became at last insupportable to the patience 
of the Senate." "How long will you abuse our 
patience, Catiline!" exclaims the orator. What a 
thunderbolt from a clear sky with which to commence 
an exordium! 

Of the relation of style to the emotions and will 
I shall speak in another place. I close here with the 
remark that we must in composition keep in sight the 
true aim of the sermon. If a man work as a sculptor 
on the marble or a painter on the canvas, to produce 
something artistic he will be likely to have his reward, 
viz. : the approval, more or less, of his audience before 
whom the work is displayed; but he will not reap 
much other fruit from all his labor. A locomotive, a 
printing press or a machine gun may be a work of 
ingenuity and art, but that is not its object, and its 
sole worth is in its power of execution. The same is 
true of the sermon; fashioned symmetrically, adorned 
with illustration, welded and tempered in the fires of 
genius, its aim is to convince, convert and reconstruct 
men. "A great sermonizer! " you say. What I 
want to know is, Is he a great soul-saver ? 



80 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

What Prof. Guizot said twenty years ago has, 
unfortunately, a present application. Speaking from 
the point of view of a professor of history in a great 
university, he thus compares the pulpit eloquence of 
the seventh and eighth centuries with that of modern 
times. " I said just now, gentlemen, that in the 
seventh and eighth centuries the character of literature 
had ceased to be a literature — that it had become, in 
fact, a power; that in writing and speaking men aimed 
only at actual and immediate results; that they sought 
neither science nor intellectual pleasure, and that for 
this reason the age was fruitful in nothing but ser- 
mons and similar works. This fact is impressed upon 
the sermons themselves. Those of modern times have 
a style more literary than practical. The orator 
aspires more after beauty of language, after the intel- 
lectual satisfaction of his hearers, than to reach the 
depths of their souls to produce real effects, notable 
reforms, efficacious conversions. Nothing of this 
sort — nothing of the literary character in the sermons 
of which I have just been speaking to you; not one 
thought of expressing themselves nicely, of combin- 
ing images and ideas with art. The orator goes to 
the point; he wants to do a work; he turns and turns 
again in the same circle; he has no fear of repetition, 
of familiarity, not even the inelegant and common- 
place. He speaks briefly, but recommences every 
morning. This is not sacred eloquence; it is religious 
power* 



* Guizot's " Histoire de la Civilisation," Vol. II., p. 24. 



The Psychology of Emotion and Will 



CHAPTER VI 



The Psychology of Emotion and Will 



THE crowning aim of the preacher is to lead men 
to action towards good — towards the best — 
towards God. Subjective psychology is the 
philosophy of action. A knowledge of it will teach 
him how to touch those springs of action — emotion, 
desire, will. 

' 'Always throwing light upon the matter — that is 
the only sort of speech worth speaking, ' ' said Thomas 
Carlyle; but He who ' ' knew what was in man" said, 
' ' L,ight is come into the world, but men love darkness 
rather then light." Light alone is not life, nor has it 
power to create love. The intellect, however illu- 
mined, has in it no force. 

There is a pathetic, and often tragic, gulf between 
knowing and doing. It is the preacher's crucial work 
to bridge that chasm. Bunyan's " Slough of De- 
spond," into which tons of theological works had 
been dumped without filling it up, is solid ground 
compared with this yawning crevasse. The Divine 
Preacher realized this when, in closing His marvelous 
sermon on the mount, he said, " He that heareth 
these sayings of mine and doeth them not," etc. 

Knowing, feeling and willing are the triumvirate 
that move and direct life, the verdict of neither of 
them apart from the rest is effective — at least it is not 

81 



82 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

normally nor permanently effective. Feeling alone is 
inoperative and unproductive. It is not an end in 
itself, but a means to an end. The natural history of 
an emotion is to arise, to increase, to culminate, to 
recede and to vanish; and this history is usually very 
brief. The will has no originating or self -determinat- 
ing power, but is under the stimulus and control of 
the emotions. 

It is the work of the preacher to carefully study 
the co-relation of the emotions and the will, for of 
these he must become, in a sense, the master. What 
Plato calls "the divine art of ruling men's souls" 
belongs to him, and if he would not dishonor his 
throne, he will realize the glory and responsibility of 
his vicegerency. There is no work so sublime as to 
influence souls, and its responsibility is infinite. 

It is said that in moving a finger a man is starting 
a force that may take the round of the universe. It 
is certain that in performing a particular act or in 
uttering a word a man may be putting in motion a 
moral potency which may reach to the limit of a man's 
life, and even over the world itself, and go down 
through generations, as did the appeal of the humble 
minister when he touched the chords of Robert Mof- 
fat's heart. 

Some general considerations of the psychology of 
the emotions and the will every earnest preacher will 
grasp: 

I. Emotion is a tremendous power; it may be 
called the electricity of moral life — a magnificent, a 
wonderful and also a perilous element. Under the 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU*. 83 

direction of a skillful leader of men emotion may- 
furnish the motive power of conversion in an individual 
or a nation. Savonarola from his pulpit transformed 
the Florentine republic from moral debauchery to a 
theocracy, and amidst the wildest enthusiasm had 
Christ proclaimed ' ' King of Florence. ' ' Sacred songs 
superseded ribald ballads in the streets, and the car- 
nival of depravity gave place to festivals of religious 
chastity. On the other hand, Robespierre and his 
atheists, working upon the same elements, turned 
Paris into a pandemonium of incredible crimes and 
enthroned a prostitute as its tutelary divinity under 
the name of the " Goddess of Reason." 

II. The excitement of the emotions may lead to 
faith or fanaticism, according as it is guided by the 
moral intelligence. Ignorant or unscrupulous preach- 
ers have seized this susceptibility and wrought up 
excitements and startling and harmful manifestations. 
On the other hand, anaesthetic preachers have sup- 
pressed emotion to the extent of producing a moral 
atrophy and spiritual paralysis. There are innocent 
young sermons that touch the emotions as a breath 
wakes a faint note on the seolian, that exhausts itself 
in a sigh; and there are storm sermons that gash, like 
lightning, the murky clouds of the soul and send 
awful reverberations through its depths. Between 
these extremes there are all degrees of the emotional 
element in sermons. Those which address themselves 
chiefly to the reasoning powers should not be destitute 
of this feature; at least it should appear in the appli- 
cation or peroration, while those which appeal chiefly 



84 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

to the affections should spring from and be controlled 
by reason. The metaphysical and the sentimental 
sermon both are equally deficient in psychic energy. 

III. Men are led to action in all spheres of life by 
the excitement of emotion. The very word carries in 
it that meaning. Love, hate, delight, dread, sympa- 
thy, contempt, joy, grief, etc., are essential and 
potent factors in the drama of souls. The distinction 
sometimes drawn by theologians between natural 
emotion and religious emotion is, I think, as un- 
founded as the distinction which a late distinguished 
professor* draws between sacred and secular music. 
Emotion, like music, is a simple element. Love is 
love, whether it embrace sin or holiness; it is awak- 
ened in the same way by that which is lovely (or 
seems so), and it acts in the same way, drawing its 
subject towards the object. 

When the Spirit of God, through the Word, so 
acts upon the soul as to reveal to the soul both sin 
and holiness and the heart and God in their true 
character, the corresponding emotions are awakened 
and act in their characteristic way. Thus it is not the 
emotions that are changed in character, but ' ' the eyes 
of the understanding are opened ' ' to see things in a 
new light. Emotion is not religious nor irreligious; 
it is a psychic element, absolutely under the sway of 
the objects presented to it, either external or internal, 
as they are or as they appear to be. 

IV. Our higher emotions are not only faculties 
of feeling, parallel and ranking with our powers of 



* Dr. John A. Broadus, Sermon on Worship. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU,. 85 

intellect and will, but they are of extreme value as the 
greatest aid we naturally have in the pursuit of all 
that is truthful, beautiful and good. 

The place of the emotions in religion is clearly 
defined. Their existence is a sign of moral worth, 
and carries in it the hope of salvability. Any state in 
which they are absent must be that of a fatally 
maimed moral nature. To be ''past feeling" is, in 
Scripture, equivalent to being past hope. Conse- 
quently, appeals intended to arouse the emotions from 
a latent or feeble to an active state are in the highest 
degree reasonable and important. In fact, the culture 
and development of the emotions is the true object at 
which all the higher arts aim. 

V. Emotion is awakened by either physical or 
mental stimulants. We produce certain effects upon 
the nervous system through the media of the senses. 
All the senses are thus instruments of emotion, carry- 
ing along the nerves to the soul appropriate impres- 
sions and awakening corresponding emotions. The 
same is true of images and ideas presented directly to 
the mind by the exercises of the mind itself — as by 
memory or imagination. The function of the Divine 
Spirit, which must never be lost sight of, is to create 
those appetencies which will receive these impressions 
in a way harmonious with his own nature — i. e. , with 
righteousness. The preacher does not need the aid 
of the Spirit to awaken emotion, but that the emotion 
awakened shall act in a righteous, that is, in a normal 
way, free from the morbid tendency of man's fallen 
nature. 



86 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

As a rule, ideas, to be quickening, must be pre- 
sented in a concrete form; abstractions do not kindle 
emotion. The teachings of Christ and all of those 
who have moved men's hearts and changed their lives 
have been pictorial, parabolic, incarnated in the facts 
and memories of actual life. 

VI. The preacher must reckon with the antago- 
nizing current of perverted and chronic feelings as it 
affects trains of thought. Conceit and settled prej udice 
are among his veteran foes. He must also remember 
that opposite or contrasting emotions exclude one 
another, the more powerful remaining; as, for in- 
stance, dread excludes hope, while feelings of the 
same or allied kind intensify one another. Intense 
feeling lords it over all the other powers; a tidal wave 
of emotion will sweep away, for the moment, every 
vestige of opposing arguments and facts. ' ' Feeling 
is not merely a nihilist, but an iconoclast; we even 
repudiate what we have felt, insisted on and revered. ' ' 
Our feelings sometimes distort our common sense by 
smiting us with mental strabismus. The emotion of 
fear or hate, for instance, can produce the most in- 
credible beliefs. A chronic self-complacency so braces 
the confidence of the self-righteous man in his course 
that, in spite of habitual failures to satisfy his con- 
science and judgment, he persists in his self-righteous 
effort with as full assurance as though all the others 
had succeeded. 

VII. "Special regard should be given to the 
tender emotion. It surpasses every other life interest 
because of its social relations, its touch of nature, 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WILL. 87 

which makes the whole world kin; its sympathy, 
which enters into the feelings of others for their be- 
hoof — a vicarious impulse in opposition to the self- 
seeking spirit." 

The congregation as a whole and each individual 
thereof represent two sentiments, the egoistic and the 
altruistic. The degree in which each is developed 
varies greatly. With some the altruistic is in excess; 
their concern is for others; they scarcely consider 
themselves to a degree needful for their own preser- 
vation. With others, the egoistic is so supreme that 
everything that passes through the alembic of their 
thoughts is made to take its quality and character, as 
it is advantageous to themselves. Between these 
extremes there is every gradation. The preacher is 
to act upon both these sentiments, to stimulate by 
proper excitements and guide in proper directions both 
these springs of action. 

Concerning the egoistic, ideas and images, mem- 
ory and imagination are to be invoked which will 
awaken the hope of pleasure, of acquisition, of pos- 
session, and those which awaken fear of personal pain, 
privation and penalty and peril; while in the case of 
the altruistic we are to present the sorrows, dangers, 
distresses, necessities of others whereby compassion, 
sympathy and benevolent self-sacrifice are awakened. 
One man's emotions are aroused chiefly by appeals to 
his self-love, self-preservation, self -gratification; he 
can only be constrained to action by fear of present 
and future loss and suffering, or hope of gain, enjoy- 
ment and reward, while another is most effectually 



88 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

aroused by the picture of how others are to suffer pain 
and injury, or be made happier by the way in which 
he treats the Gospel message. 

It is vain and useless to appeal to men to feel as a 
matter of duty or reason. Men are never afraid of sin 
because they ought to be, nor do they love God be- 
cause to love Him is of the highest reason. Men are 
simply wearied and antagonized by such vague and 
impotent exhortations. 

The link that connects feeling with action must 
be studied. It springs from the law that connects 
pleasure with larger sense of life and the converse. 
Desire and volition are directly related to action. 
Desire naturally prompts volition. Action is the child 
of both. Desire is often estopped by conscious or 
imagined inability to act. Hence we speak of the 
1 ' pain of longing ' ' and of an aching desire. In 
general, desire springs into pursuit; thus avarice is 
the pursuit, not the enjoyment, of wealth. 

Motive, strictly speaking, denotes not the intrin- 
sic value of the object presented, but its value as it 
stands in the view of the mind; not reality, but appear- 
ance governs decision. For instance, suppose Christ, 
in His true character as revealed in the Scriptures, 
the incarnation of all that is supremely lovable and 
trustworthy, be presented to the contemplation of a 
worldly man and his will rejects him. Now, as the 
mind is incapable of rejecting a good or choosing an 
evil as such, it is plain that the reality and appearance 
of good is in the state of the mind. Here lies the 
essence of erroneous choice — the will preferring an 



THK PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WILL. 89 

object which is apparently, but not really, preferable. 
Objective appearance is the determination of choice. 

VIII. The preacher must not trifle with the emo- 
tions. This he may be tempted to do in order to show 
his power, or simply for the gratification of the hearer 
himself; for there are those who are pleased to be 
wrought upon by the pulpit in the same manner that 
they are pleased with an exciting play or novel. But 
the preacher has a serious aim. If he excites emotion, 
it is to win the heart, to induce decision and to build 
character. Emotion wrought up with no ulterior 
object is both an abuse and an injury to the moral 
nature. When the attention is thoroughly awakened 
and steadily held, the hearer is like a well-tuned harp, 
each chord a distinct emotion, and the skillful speaker 
may evoke a response from one or more at his will. 
This lays him under a grand and serious responsibility. 
I,et him keep steadily at such a time to his divine 
purpose, to produce a healthful action, a life in 
harmony with God and a symphony of service. 

It has always been found that of those hearers 
who have enjoyed an instructive ministry through a 
course of years when, in a time of religious awaken- 
ing, they are powerfully wrought upon, the emotional 
excitement does not vanish fruitlessly, but usually 
leads to intelligent conversion; while those who have 
grown up under periodical excitements become seared, 
as by fire, and often skeptical. 

IX. It must be remembered, however, that the 
most powerful feelings are sometimes independent of 
the reasoning powers. As a careful student of motives 



90 PSYCHIC POWER IN PRKACHING. 

has said: " Reason, reason, as much as you like; but 
beware of thinking that it answers for everything. 
This mother loves her child; will reason comfort her ? 
Does cool reason control the inspired poet, the heroic 
warrior, the lover ? Reason guides but a small part 
of man, and that the least interesting. The rest 
obeys feeling, true or false; and passion, good or 
bad." (AbbSRoux.) 

X. Emotion is the power whereby the man in the 
pulpit and the people in the pews are physically uni- 
fied; it must be, therefore, coming and going between 
them with a trustful sympathy. Gladstone charac- 
terized as the supreme influence of the speaker the 
' ' power of receiving from his audience in a vapor 
what he pours back upon them in a flood." The 
preacher who would sway an audience must not be 
anxious about professional dignity; must be willing to 
let himself go with what the French call abandon; 
letting nature assert herself, fearless of criticism, 
indifferent to conventional ideas. How manifest is 
this free emotional element in Christ and in the 
Apostle Paul ! 

If a preacher is deficient in it, he must develop 
that side of his nature; if it be in excess, it must be 
controlled and disciplined if he would gain in power. 
Even congregations may, through long training under 
an unemotional ministry, become defective in suscepti- 
bility; while others, through the over- stimulus of 
emotional preachers, become either ennuyie or hysteri- 
cal. If emotion is awakened habitually without a 
basis of reasoning and the guidance of truth; if it be 



the psychology of emotion and will. 91 

not the fruit of Scriptural ideas, it will be abortive. 
Hence a preaching that is sweetly sentimental or per- 
sistently exciting, as in certain kinds of " revival 
meetings, ' ' becomes debilitating, and even hardening. 
A healthy excitation of the feelings through a vital 
presentation of the truth should bring forth the fruit 
of vigorous action. 

XI. Emotion, I said, is not an end in itself. 
While as a faculty it adds its own characteristic ele- 
ment to human life, giving to it its deepest interest, 
yet, in the attainment of life's essential aim, which is 
not pleasure, but achievement and character, emotion 
must subserve that regal faculty of the soul to which 
all the others are subject, viz., the will. It is this 
which develops character and shapes the issues of 
eternity. 

XII. The sermon aims at the will. The philo- 
sophic or didactic treatise may attain its end in reach- 
ing the understanding; the aesthetic discourse appeals 
to the taste and sentiment; but the sermon only 
achieves its mission when it rouses the will to action. 
Will consists in capacity for free choice. Its function 
is to choose between the various objects of attraction 
or desire, or, in certain circumstances, to act in accord- 
ance with purely intellectual or moral motives and in 
opposition to impulses and desires. 

Emotion develops into motive and desire into 
will. An essential condition of willing is an adequate 
psychic cause. The will has no self-determining 
power. It is swayed by the feelings, motives, desires, 
passions — a vast variety of influences from within and 



92 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

without. While we present motives to a certain 
course of conduct, we are to present those which will 
lead men to resist the appeal of motives that are coun- 
teracting. The will is certainly led to choose by the 
presentation of motives, but the influence of motives 
which ought to govern the will depends on the state 
of the heart. Hence the need of the ' ' new heart ' ' 
and the " right spirit," which only God can bestow. 
Still, God works with men, *. e. y gives the heart 
which will feel the influence of good motives at the 
time they are presented. 

The preacher should continually bear in mind 
that while the will is governed in its decisions by fixed 
laws, the element of a perverted nature must always 
be reckoned with. The heart is so full of errors, 
prejudices and delusions that things most excellent in 
themselves are commonly rejected through the " de- 
ceitf ulness of the heart." We address people whose 
ethical ideas are misty and confused by false popular 
maxims and social customs. 

We must also keep in mind the feebleness and 
vagrancy of the will power in many. In most it is 
weak towards good and strong towards evil. The 
feeble will is one that needs to be wrought upon by 
the more powerful emotion; a greater severity of pain 
or a greater attraction of pleasure must be presented 
to the mind. 

This is equally true where the conscience has 
become blunted and where familiarity has generated 
indifference. The physician of souls has to deal 
largely with settled habits of levity, indolence and 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WILL. 93 

procrastination. In such conditions, to arouse the will 
to action requires intense vitality and startling, alarm- 
ing, pathetic and vehement address. Many of the 
most powerful preachers of former generations aimed, 
like the prophets of old, to awaken terror. I speak 
not of rude and fiery exhorters, but men of the best 
culture and piety of their age, such as Chrysostom 
and Savonarola, Massillon and Jonathan Edwards, 
Whitefield and James Parsons. A phenomenon worth 
studying is the almost entire absence from the preach- 
ing of to-day of the appeal to fear and the presentation 
of the " terror of the Lord," of which Paul speaks — 
a persuasive factor which is never obsolete. Is the 
lapse of that once powerful feature rational, scriptural, 
evangelical, or simply super-aesthetical ? I am not 
speaking of the form, but of the fact and spirit of it. 

It is the preacher's object to awaken such feelings 
and present such motives as are strongest with his 
particular hearers. They must, therefore, spring from 
their level, from their memory, their experiences, their 
familiar observation, since motives drawn from a region 
remote from their actual life meet no response. The 
trend of consciousness, as determined by past experi- 
ences, always enters into our willing. 

Imagination and enthusiasm, which may be re- 
garded as twin sisters, are valuable factors in arousing 
the will. 

The power to think visually, to picture spiritual 
and invisible things as present and acting together 
with actual and passing events and the outgoing fire 
of the speaker's glowing soul, is irresistible. Malle- 



94 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

branche says, ' ' Un passione emeut toujours ' ' (an im- 
passioned man always moves). And he adds: "Al- 
though his rhetoric may be confused, it fails not to be 
very impressive because his air and manner make it 
felt, agitating the imagination and touching the 
heart." '* The secret of oratory," says George Eliot, 
1 ' lies not in saying new things, but in saying them 
with a certain power that moves the hearer. ' ' The 
primitive meaning of enthusiasm is God-within-ness; 
and the enthusiast is an inspired man, to whom mind 
and heart and will respond, as feeling that a moral 
power is acting upon them which they cannot resist. 
Some men's natures are like seething geysers; others, 
like the genial glow of June; but to carry a popular 
audience with him, there is nothing that helps the 
preacher more than the psychic force of the contagious 
warmth and outgoing impulse of enthusiasm. But 
the effects of enthusiasm are largely evanescent — the 
iron must be shaped on the anvil of facts by the ham- 
mer of truth while it is at white heat. 

XIII. Some of the new psychologists hold that 
' * character is the sole immediate cause of voluntary 
action; motives are only mediate causes of them." 
If by this they mean the normal, voluntary action, it 
is true; a man's habitual actions are the fruit of his 
character; but this only proves the need of diverting 
him from his natural trend, lifting him above his nor- 
mal action by the stimulus and stress of motives and 
emotions adequate to produce such an effect. An 
illustrative and typical case of such action is in the 
declaration of Paul, ' ' The love of Christ constrainetk 



THK PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU,. 95 

us. " Notice the comprehensive movement indicated 
by the Greek — seizing upon and carrying us above and 
beyond our natural selves. 

XIV. The preacher must ever bear in mind that 
the dominant and permanent passion of human nature 
is the insatiable desire to enjoy life in its fulness, and 
take that as the key to the situation, the strategic 
point of his campaign. 

Pascal tells us that 1 * desire and compulsion are the 
source of all our actions — desire of the voluntary and 
compulsion of the involuntary." * 

{La concupiscence et la force sont la source de toutes ?ws 
actions ; la concupiscence fait les volontaires ; la force les 
involontaires. u — Pascal: Penseesl., p. 220, Paris ed.) 

I suppose he uses the word " desire " in a broad, 
generic sense, embracing every inclination to act in 
obedience to intensive feelings of whatever class. All 
animal nature is surging with the swell of this vast 
tide of intensive desires. In every direction we have 
objects to stimulate them; on the one hand, attrac- 
tions, charms, allurements and enchantments, hopes, 
aspirations, longings, ambitions, determinations; on 
the other, we have fear, dread, apprehension, abhor- 
rence, envy, rivalry, jealousy, anger, fury, sorrow, 
repentance, shame and remorse as the expressions of 
the unattained, misdirected or irretrievably lost. Even 
satiety, surfeit, tedium, ennui, become intolerable de- 
mands for the exercise of our moral, physical or psy- 
chical functions. 

The universal struggle is for happiness, which in 



* See Ward, " The Psychic Factors of Civilization," p. 72. 



g6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the popular sense means the enjoyment of the pleas- 
ures afforded by the satisfaction of social, aesthetic, 
moral and intellectual desires and tastes. If men 
could be made to see in which direction happiness lies, 
that soul force, the connate impulse of desire, will 
urge them toward it, and the preacher will be saved a 
vast amount of superfluous pleading. 

XV. In popular speech the "heart" is spoken 
of as the seat of the emotions, desires and will. This 
may be due to the fact that the physical heart is the 
seat of the sympathetic nerve plexus, and also the 
force pump of the life current and the seat of vital 
power. It is appropriate, therefore, to speak of win- 
ning over the heart to the side of God; that is, to 
create desires after God; that is, to lead men's will to 
choose God because believing that happiness is to be 
found in Him. 

XVI. Finally, a firm belief in His power to do is 
a condition of a man's willing. A man fettered by 
poverty and toil may read of the delights of foreign 
travel and wish to enjoy it, but he cannot will to do so 
while conscious of his inability. The doctrine of the 
*' Moral inability of the unregenerate, ' ' as held by the 
Calvinists of a former generation, was naturally 
paralyzing. The hearer's consciousness was always 
against it, and he must secretly repudiate it ere he 
could exercise his will in choosing Christ. It is an 
undeniable fact that we are conscious of a free will: 
hence fatalism is ruled out. Only the man who knows 
that he is free is capable of being constrained. ' ' Free- 
dom and constraint are reciprocal ideas. ' ' 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU,. 97 

Hence, while the preacher's hope of influencing 
the will is ultimately based upon the operations of that 
Spirit who is said to ' ' make one willing in the day of 
his power," he is never to forget that such divine 
power operates along the lines of our human endeavor 
and according to the constitution of the soul itself, 
which is never ruled by physical force. It is of the 
utmost importance that such objects, such motives, 
should be presented as are best adapted to lead to a 
choice, and that they should be presented in the most 
vivid, comprehensible and striking manner possible; 
nay, that they should be re-enforced, wave on wave, 
motive propelling motive, only avoiding that excess 
which is weakening. 

Choice is the pre-eminently important and central 
factor belonging to the will; it is the culminant and 
decisive act of the interior life. By it the soul asserts 
its sovereignty over the conduct. We must convince 
men of the dignity, solemnity and responsibility of 
this eminently personal act of free choice. To secure 
the action of the will being of such importance, the 
preacher must not fail to lead up to it. His peroration 
or final appeal is in some respects the most important 
part of his effort. I^et him not stop short of it, nor 
let him spend so much time on other portions that he 
must close in a hurried and weak way. Some preach- 
ers habitually apologize for their undue length, and 
think to propitiate their hearers by omitting the 
"application." This is both psychologically and, 
rhetorically a serious fault. In an intelligent congre- 
gation it will be found that on many subjects which 



98 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the preacher is called to present the people are familiar 
with the argument and motives, and they are pleased 
when the preacher treats them as in that condition. 
His chief work will then be to awaken their memories, 
to illustrate confessed truths by fresh and objective 
stimulants to the imagination and affection, vitalize 
desire, give spur to impulse and make the focal point 
of the will the chief attack of the sermon — "If ye 
know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 
"He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to 
him it is sin." " Behold, I have set before you life 
and death, therefore choose life!" We must carry 
the citadel of the will, or the opportunity is lost. 

A single shock may be sufficient, when a chemi- 
cal liquid is saturated with some salt, to precipitate it 
at once into crystals; and he is a wise preacher who, 
watching his audience, discovers the moment when a 
brave, authoritative, confident challenge to immediate 
decision is all that is needed to crystallize conviction 
into conduct, impulse into immortal action. 



The Sermon in Action 



CHAPTER VII 



The Sermon in Action 



WHEN Saurin, the eminent French Protestant, 
was preaching at The Hague, and places in 
his church engaged a fortnight ahead by 
the first people of the city, men even climbing on 
ladders to get a sight of him through the windows, 
the celebrated scholar, Le Clerc, for a time refused to 
hear him, declaring that oratory was below the dignity 
of the Christian pulpit and that he ' ' distrusted effects 
wrought more by a vain eloquence than by the force 
of logic. ' ' One day he yielded, and went on condition 
that he should sit behind the pulpit screen so as not to 
see the preacher's delivery. Before the sermon closed 
he found himself in front of the preacher, listening 
with rapt expression, unconscious of the tears that 
trickled down his quivering face. 

The incident is but one of the many historical 
illustrations of the fascinating conquests of the sermon 
in eloquent action. 

The sermon is like the tent which the fairy gave 
to Prince Ahmed, which, when folded, seemed like a 
fan for a lady's hand; but spread it, and the armies of 
powerful Sultans might gather beneath its shade. 
The preacher's composition alone is like a folded tent; 
a right delivery gives life and expansion to his every 
thought, propulsion and impregnation to his whole 

U.o. •- 



IOO PSYCHIC POWER IN PRKACHING. 

mental and literary work. How can we over-estimate 
the vital importance to the preacher, to the hearer of 
that half hour in which the work of days (we might 
almost say of years) is to be focussed upon the con- 
gregation ! 

The sermon in action. The place is a " valley of 
decision;" the hour, a time of supreme effort, on 
which the history and destiny of many souls may 
hang. It is not a review of platoons of ideas, gar- 
nished and drilled in the study, but a real struggle on 
the part of the preacher to conquer his hearers and 
win them over to the truth for which he pleads, and to 
the life of the Spirit. The message which he utters 
is freighted with the very excellence of saving truth, 
and carries in it the supreme effort of Divinity in 
man's behalf, and in its success or failure all heaven 
is interested. The preacher in the pulpit occupies the 
supreme strategic point in the moral universe. This 
fact ought to stimulate his energies to their highest 
effort. No wonder the lion-hearted L,uther trembled 
as he ascended the pulpit steps ! 

When Demosthenes answered that ' ' action ' ' was 
the first, the second, the third quality in the orator, 
his dictum seemed exaggerated. L,ord Bacon is sur- 
prised. "A strange thing," he says, "that that part 
of an orator which is but superficial, and rather the 
virtue of a player, should be placed above those nobler 
parts of invention, elocution and the rest, nay, almost 
alone, as if it were all in all ! " But he evidently took 
the word in a much narrower sense than the Greek 
orator intended; he meant it to cover the substance of 



The sermon in action. ioi 

the thought as well as the manner of its utterance. 
The same misconception has led others to substitute 
"energy" as the correct translation. But Demos- 
thenes was supported by Cicero and Quintilian in 
giving "action" the foremost place in oratory, and 
they are justified, if we regard the word as including 
all that is legitimately expressed thereby as the uni- 
versal movement of all the psychical and physical 
powers, to achieve the end the speaker has in view. 
An intelligent, harmonious and sustained action is not 
only the prime essential in preaching, if it is to produce 
something more than a still-born assent; it is also 
according to the laws of nature, and not artificial. It 
is, therefore, capable of being studied as a science, 
cultivated as a fine art, developed in all its parts and 
applied with as much certainty as can electricity, 
gravitation or heat. The laws which govern it are 
not less exact than those which control other natural 
forces. 

Very much that is germane to this subject I shall 
leave to the professional teachers of elocution and 
delivery, confining myself to principles. 

I. All true action in the pulpit must first proceed 
from the soul. In other words, it has a psychic base 
and spring. If the man's soul is in a healthy and 
vigorous state, inspired by his theme, his thought will 
swim to the surface and reflect itself in his physical 
features and organs. By a subtle psychological law 
the whole nervous and muscular system responds to 
the sympathetic impulses of the emotions and will; 
feeling and purpose mj^steriously and spontaneously 



102 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

press at every gate of the eyes, the lips, the cheeks,, 
the hands, the feet, for expression. The preacher's 
heart, swelling with inspired, energetic conviction and 
emotion, lifts itself up like a great tidal wave, over- 
flows its banks and pours itself forth in expressions of 
the features, glances of the eyes, quivering of the 
mouth, tones of the voice and movements of the limbs, 
so that the physical structure becomes simply the 
complex and delicate organ of expression for the 
brain, and heart, and will. 

And this distinguishes pulpit action from stage 
acting. The former is in a large degree spontaneous 
and natural; the latter is mainly the result of study, 
art and imitation. The prejudice against what is 
called ' ' theatrical ' ' preaching is due to the attempt to 
copy the arts of the actor instead of gaining the full- 
ness of life and its natural utterance. Art is by no 
means to be despised; it has an important place in the 
correction of faults and the development of grace and 
impressiveness; but while it may guide and rectify the 
forces of nature, when through bad examples they 
have become cramped or distorted, it must always be 
subordinate. 

A sympathetic and yearning heart must give to 
action its finest intelligence, beauty and radiating 
warmth. Not only must the preacher dip his pen in 
his heart when he writes his sermon, but he must let 
his heart pulsate through the delivery of it. When 
one puts a conch-shell to his ear he seems to hear the 
echoes of the sounding sea on whose shores it had been 
cast up; but science tells him that what he hears is 



THK SERMON IN ACTION. 103 

the booming of the red sea of his own heart, rushing 
through arterial channels and, from his living hand, 
filling the convolutions of the shell with its mysterious 
whispers. The same shell in a dead hand would have 
no voice. The Word of God is such a shell, brought 
from the eternal shore and held in the preacher's hand. 
A living heart must pour its thrills of passion and 
surges of pathos and waves of inspired emotion through 
it, or its convolutions will yield no language the inner 
ear can appreciate. 

When the preacher is not satisfied merely to have 
his discourse in li black and white,'' nor even in his 
memory, like a recitation, but when, above all, he 
carries it in his soul, if his soul dilates with it, travails 
with it, then he is sure to deliver it with an " action " 
that shall have at least the qualities of naturalness and 
reality, which are essentials of success. 

Without this, all the rules of the elocutionist 
regarding gesture and voice will avail little. Even in 
dramatic training the first canon of instruction for the 
actor is to so incorporate himself with the character 
he represents and the scenes he depicts as to catch the 
mysterious, but essential, inspiration of reality. And 
the triumph of his art is in so acting as to make his 
audience forget that it is all a spectacle and to sway 
their passions as by a real tragedy. 

The triumph of the preacher is reached when the 
infinitely solemn and glorious realities which he feels 
shall express themselves with full weight of demon- 
stration by every physical organ, as well as by every 
mental and moral faculty. A man may have command 



104 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

of his sermon, and yet, like the late Dean Stanley and 
some other able preachers, stand like a speaking statue; 
but if his sermon has command of him, he cannot fail 
to wield a weightier weapon, because he is electrified 
into appropriate and eloquent movement, so that the 
whole man becomes a visible, and audible, and living 
sermon. 

The overflow of thought- illumined nervous vital- 
ity reveals its presence and quality primarily in the 
highly susceptible nerves and muscles of the face, since 
they belong to the vaso-motor system which acts auto- 
matically and largely unconsciously. The will has 
but little power to veil the emotions that surge in the 
soul, and they betray themselves in the countenance. 
" Nothing speaks like the countenance," says Fenelon 
{Rien ne parte tant que le visage). What, in fact, is 
the ' ' countenance ' ' but the secret soul and habit of 
thought and feeling revealing itself in the features. 
Words can only gradually unfold our meaning, but the 
countenance gives expression to the speaker's feeling 
before he utters a word. Vividness and intensity of 
expression usually depend upon the liveliness of the 
inward passion or thought. It is not, however, alto- 
gether involuntary; it may be somewhat controlled by 
the will, and may also be cultivated by study and 
practice. 

The eye is, among the silent factors of pulpit action, 
a wonderful instrument of psychic expression, and too 
little appreciated by the preacher. It can flash like 
lightning and beam with love, invite with sympathy, 
wither with scorn, burn with indignation, subdue with 



THK SERMON IN ACTION. 105 

a steadfast, penetrating look that seems to read the 
heart. Mirabeau quelled the ferocity of the French 
Assembly with his lion eye, while that of a Napoleon 
or Webster was a gateway, out of which marched 
conquest. 

The preacher who has not learned to look his 
hearers fully in the face, individually and collectively; 
who has not acquired that ' ' visional grasp ' ' which 
fixes attention, and at the same time gives him a com- 
manding survey of his field of battle, loses an element 
of power inestimable. Nothing can take the place of 
this subtile, electrical influence. 

Standing in momentary pause and contemplation 
of his audience, before a word is spoken, calm, earnest, 
genial, commanding, the preacher can sweep, as with 
a mild and awakening searchlight, his congregation 
till every eye is fixed upon him and they feel the 
luminous thrill of his individualizing, yet all-compre- 
hensive, gaze. And then having become en rapport 
with every man, he pours forth from that same fountain 
of impressions scintillations that interpret, invite, con- 
vince, persuade, appeal, and whole volumes of tender- 
ness, enthusiasm, good cheer, trustfulness and expec- 
tation may be read in his frank, kindly, unfaltering 
eyes ! How much is gained by the penetrating, soulful 
gaze at the asking of a question or the launching of a 
truth! How much is lost when the eye is tethered to 
a manuscript or wanders helpless to the ceiling or out 
of the window ! 

Another of the silent factors is the mouth. While 
the eye is perhaps the most expressive feature, the 



106 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

mouth is the most sympathetic. Here, as in a nest, 
gather a brood of emotions; the tenderness of love, the 
quivering of pain, the curl of contempt, the firmness 
of purpose, the smile of pleasure. Says L,avater: 
' ' The mouth is the interpreter and organ of the mind 
and heart. In repose, as well as in the infinite variety 
of its movements, it unites a world of characters. It 
is eloquent even in its silence; it speaks, and will still 
speak when it can never open again. ' ' A well- formed 
mouth, generous in size, mobile, quick and sensitive 
to the movements of the inner thought, is a bow that 
abides in strength. Its conspicuous beauty and moral 
importance impressed the philosophic Herder, who 
says: " It is from the mouth the voice issues; inter- 
preter of the heart and of the soul, expression of feel- 
ing, of friendship and of the purest enthusiasm. The 
upper lip translates the inclination, the appetites, the 
disquietudes of love; pride and passion contract it, 
cunning attenuates it, goodness of heart reflects it and 
the passions incarnate themselves there with an inex- 
pressible charm." 

According to Delsart, the mouth has more than 
2,000 phases of expression. Of course, the mobility 
of the mouth, as well as the versatility of the eye, 
varies with temperaments, with the acuteness of nerve 
action, the keenness of susceptibilities, but it is largely 
trained by habit and education. Its habitual expres- 
sion reveals the constant action of the inner life. The 
lips, like "Wordsworth's mountains, look familiar with 
forgotten years, curved and channeled with memorials 
of a thousand impulses. 



THK SERMON IN ACTION. 107 

Another silent factor of psychic action is gesture. 
By the varied and vivid movements of the hands and 
the limbs thought may be vividly portrayed without 
the utterance of a sound. Indeed, there are few 
moral or physical emotions that pantomime cannot 
express. The study of pantomime is almost entirely 
overlooked by the preacher, as though it were lacking 
in dignity and only fitted for comedy, whereas it is 
Nature's first and most vivid interpreter of thought 
and feeling. The hands are uplifted in prayer or 
appeal, outstretched variously in pleading, inviting, 
protesting, repelling, blessing, bestowing, welcoming; 
they are clasped in entreaty, wrung in anguish, joined 
in fellowship. 

The student of action might profitably exercise 
himself in his study by trying how large a part of his 
discourse he could express by the language of panto- 
mime alone. It is lamentable to see how generally a 
constrained and awkward action, resulting from bad 
education, fear, or the bondage of the manuscript, or 
mere neglect, prevails in our pulpits. How many men 
of taste revolting from "theatrical," " sensational, ' ' 
' ' demonstrative ' ' preaching run into the opposite 
extreme of tameness, monotony and reserve! 

Some men dread to look the people in the eyes; 
others, transfixed in clerical propriety behind the desk, 
fear to stride forth like men to meet their hearers, lest 
they seem undignified. And while some, anxious to 
be ' ' eloquent, ' ' whirl their arms in the affrighted air, 
like the tattered effigy in the cornfield, others still — 
wedding paralysis to piety — stand, like L,azarus, just 



108 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

risen from the tomb, bandaged in every limb, for 
whom we feel like praying, ' ' L,oose him, and let him 
preach ! ' ' How few there are who learn to tread the 
pulpit platform with confidence ! 

The eloquence of the body, the impression of 
pose, gesture, facial expression and every muscular 
movement are, however, all but humble allies and 
servitors of that regal power — the voice. 

It is in the pulpit that the crowned and sceptred 
voice is enthroned; it is here it performs its sublimest 
function. We marvel when we think how God has 
made it (not the pen) the chief implement of man's 
recovery to his allegiance. Whatever may be said of 
the silent might of the printed word, it is and ever 
must be the incarnate word, welling fresh from a 
human soul, that commands the world's attention, 
sways the heart and will and decides destiny. For so 
has God stored up in the human voice a strange, 
divine magic that it reaches depths, awakens responses, 
electrifies the will and persuades to action in a way 
unknown to written language. 

' ' The true preacher, ' ' says Dr. Joseph Parker, of 
London, ' ' has nothing to fear from rivalry, for the 
human voice has no adequate substitute. The heart 
will not disdain any instrument of expression, but the 
instrument which it loves with all its love is the human 
voice — all instruments in one and all inspired. To 
some, indeed, all voices are alike; but so are all colors, 
all lights, all landscapes; their spirituality is at zero, 
and what life they have is mainly in their blood. 
What if the vocal powers be in reality spiritual rather 



THE SERMON IN ACTION. I09 

than physical? That they are capable of intense 
spiritual excitement is evident both in music and 
speech, and none will deny that a tone will convey a 
meaning which can never be properly expressed by 
symbols. ' ' 

In all history God has put highest honor and re- 
sponsibility upon the voice. And no wonder, when we 
consider the vastness and variety of its powers ! There 
is no musical mechanism, from shepherd's pipe to 
orchestral organ, that has such power to charm, to 
soothe, to thrill, to awe, to melt to tears, or rouse to 
wrath, or wake to love. Now it is a battle trump, 
and now a harp of praise; it can thunder as on Sinai 
and drop as the dew on Hermorj . There is no senti- 
ment or passion of the soul which it cannot arouse and 
express. There is no ear so dull but it has some tone 
to pierce it, and no truth in all the range of revelation 
that is not dependent upon it for perfect interpre- 
tation. 

Why, then, does not the preacher use his voice as 
not abusing it ? Why does he not see that, like the 
incarnate Word, it should be ' ' full of grace and 
truth ? ' ' And yet, through neglect of study and 
training, it comes to pass that the celestial music of 
the Gospel gets about as much interpretation from the 
average preacher as one of Beethoven's sonatas would 
if rendered by a village brass band. If the dead 
strings of a violin can be made to wake to rapturous 
sweetness under the skilled hand of a Paganini, what 
may not the painstaking student of oratory evoke 
from these vibrating, living cords in the throat, which 



IIO PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the fingers of God have fashioned in order that His 
breath may become vocal ! 

These being the materials of pulpit action, the 
preacher will habitually drill and discipline his forces 
to their highest efficiency. 

First. — The animal or physical basis must be built 
up and brought into its best condition. If a preacher 
presents a vigorous and imposing presence, like a 
Chalmers, or Guthrie, or Phillips Brooks, he has a 
great natural advantage; but men of less impressive 
physique may make up in healthy intensity what they 
lack in stature, breadth and muscle. Instances will 
occur in all spheres of leadership where men have 
radiated psychic power from a very limited amount of 
the " mortal coil," who were second to none in sway- 
ing an audience or winning a battle, tho' they would 
hardly pose as a model for Hercules or Jupiter Tonans. 

At the same time, physical vigor, girded loins and 
steady nerves, a freedom from debility and a fullness of 
health, erectness of carriage and decision in move- 
ment, a fearless and commanding poise, may be attained 
in all ordinary cases. It is certain that the rapid, 
robust and effective working of the brain, the creative 
imagination, passion and will depends greatly on vital 
and vigorous physical conditions. 

There is, indeed, an excitability of the emotions, 
the fancy and the other powers in a state of disease 
and nervous irritability, but it is spasmodic, hysterical 
and without carrying power. It does not awaken and 
propagate itself in the hearer if he is in a healthy 
state. An abundant and sustained physical vigor and 



THE SERMON IN ACTION. Ill 

elastic spring must be maintained; for without it the 
will is variant, and energy of every sort, timid and 
vacillating, working capriciously; it is the steadfast 
and elastic impact of the soul alone that moves the 
hearer to the point of action. 

Hence the culture and care of the physical instru- 
ment of psychic power should be a part of the preach- 
er's education as much, surely, as the study of Hebrew 
or Hermeneutics, and his vows of ordination should 
bind him as much to communion with nature abroad 
as with God in secret; while a dyspeptic stomach, a 
limp manner and a whining voice in the pulpit should 
be reprobated as much as a weak argument or an 
effeminate theology. 

He is bound to confront his audience in as perfect 
a physical condition as an electric dynamo. He 
should stand there as an incarnate galvanic battery, 
stored not only with spiritual fervor, but with earthly 
vitality. Burning the midnight oil is a psychic heresj^ 
and coming to the pulpit with brain surcharged with 
blood, nerves all a-quiver, vitality exhausted, counte- 
nance ' ' sicklied o'er with the pale cast of ' ' — sleepless- 
ness, and quite unfit to give masculine propulsion to 
his sermon, is unfaithfulness to his high calling. 

Second. — Freedom and integrity of soul must also 
be cultivated. There is a " bondage of the pulpit." 
Some men are fettered by doubt, even of their own 
standing before God; others are in bondage to the 
criticism of their hearers; a morbid diffidence enfeebles 
some; hasty and imperfect preparation, fear of failure 
or want of sympathy with their theme, or a chilling 
sense of unreality causes the heart to sag; they cannot 



V 



112 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

bear to look themselves in the face as heralds of God. 
All this is weakening, and must by all means be 
conquered. 

A preacher' s soul also must be freed from conven- 
tionalisms i?i matter and manner. Imitation is debili- 
tating; he must not even imitate himself, much less 
his seminary professor or the man who draws the 
crowd, for he will be sure to lose tone and facility. 
He must break the forms of scholastic thinking and 
speaking acquired in the schools and be free to think 
and speak along the simple human ways of the people. 
He must implicate himself in the folds of their thought 
and affection. He must annihilate the distance be- 
tween the pulpit and the pew and stoop to conquer. 
He must acquire the habit of being master of the 
situation, feeling at home in the pulpit and knowing 
just what he and his sermon are about; and his frank 
and genial manliness of bearing will prove magnetic 
of itself. 

Third. — Earnestness of aim is also essential to 
effective action. If a man shows no moral earnestness, 
his action will be sure to betray him, his freedom will 
appear careless and his energy seem artificial. 

If he makes the occasion a dress-parade rather 
than a battle, if he is more intent on displaying the 
jewels in his sword-hilt and the gracefulness of his 
fencing than in cleaving shields and dividing men 
from their sins, his action will be void of dignity and 
his audience will be quick to discover it. He has his 
reward. Some simpering sister may tell him that the 
sermon was " beautiful," he may hear others whisper- 
ing, "Elegant," ''Fine," and he strays home with 



TH£ SERMON IN ACTION. 1 13 

his head among the stars. But alas ! what playing at 
preaching is that ! 

Physical, intellectual and moral earnestness — 
all must combine in psychic force. There is a mere 
enthusiasm over syllogisms, a heat of argument, a 
mental excitement, such as led the old philosopher to 
rush into the street, en dSshabilli, crying: " Eureka ! " 
And there are preachers as enthusiastic over their own 
brain babies as that, and they think they are in 
1 ' earnest. ' ' I have heard them as they clenched their 
fists at their imaginary antagonists, got red in the 
face and strained their utterance to the verge of apo- 
plexy in demonstration of a thesis of which their 
stunned hearers were mentally asking: " Well, what 
of it?" 

But there is a soul earnestness, as of mariners 
pulling the life-boat; as of a father pleading with a 
wayward son; as of a Moses in the gate of the camp, 
and an Elijah on Carmel — a thing of life and power. 
Whitefield was carried to conquest, in preaching, on 
the torrent of such victorious earnestness; his soul 
panting to get the truth lodged in the heart, his 
imagination on fire, putting the torch to theirs, and 
his well-trained dramatic action and voice, like a 
grand organ that thrilled with its vox humana, plead 
with its viola, roused with its trumpet notes and over- 
whelmed with its full diapason, so that women would 
weep convulsively and men cry out with fear or joy. 

Fourth. — Again, a serene and courageous will is 
a factor in psychic action. "The will," says Van 
Helmont, ' ' is the first of all the powers and the 
property most dear to all spiritual beings, and displays 



114 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

itself in them more actively the more they are freed 
from matter." And Paracelsus, "The Divine,' ' as 
he was called, adds in the same strain: " Faith must 
confirm the imagination, for faith establishes the will." 
Magician that he was, he may teach us a truth in the 
dictum that ' ' determined will is the beginning of all 
magical operations. ' ' 

Though men are born into the kingdom of 
heaven, " not by the will of man, but of God," yet the 
divine Will finds its only adequate human channel in 
the will of man. Hence a limp and languid will in 
the pulpit makes the preacher an ineffective instru- 
ment. The dynamic energy of a victorious, faith- 
inspired will must be brought to bear on the vague 
and vagrant spirit of the hearer. That is of the very 
essence of psychic power. A free and persistent will — 
free because disciplined by wisdom and guided by law; 
energetic because a sane and benevolent purpose 
nerves it — is, above all things, the conquering and 
building force in the effective speaker. 

It was the difference in will power that made 
Chatham, with all his defects, a success, and Burke, 
with all his excellencies, a failure in the British Par- 
liament. It is due to this, also, that an uncultured 
evangelist will bring men to a decision for Christ, who 
have long listened with pleased immobility to the 
superior discourses of their pastor. 

It is the quickened passion that changes the ser- 
mon from a camp into a march, and it is the aroused 
will that transforms that march into a victorious 
charge. Without the will power a sermon may be an 
aesthetic treat; with it, it becomes a moral triumph. 



Sympathy an Element of Psychic Force 



CHAPTER VIII 



Sympathy an Element of Psychic Force 



THERE is a sympathetic insight of human hearts 
that enters largely into pulpit power — a subtile 
inspiration, wherein dwells the soul of preach- 
ing, and which must pervade its faculty and form, even 
as the living spirit of a man pervades organ and 
structure. 

Mere theology has little interest for the masses of 
men, and sermons on dogma and ritual weary the 
empty pews to which they are addressed; but man is 
ever an object of profound interest to himself, and was 
never more seriously studied by himself than in this 
day, when the minds of the people and the discussions 
of the press teem with earnest, eager questions that 
affect his nature, condition, social franchise, political 
status and all that concerns his development and des- 
tiny, but all, of course, limited to this material and 
present world. 

The drift of popular philosophy toward despair of 
the future and the abandonment of the goal of per- 
sonal immortality leaves man the subject of a life 
without an aim and a heart without inspiration. Be- 
neath its bubbling frivolities the spirit of this genera- 
tion is sad ; the purple robe of material prosperities 
and the abundant viands which load its table mock an 
orphaned and empty soul. 

115 



Il6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

It is the concern of the preacher to feed this fam- 
ished flock, leading it away from gilded husks and 
sand-choked wells into God's green pastures and by 
His waters of rest. It is not metaphysics that men 
want, but bread; not the revel of imagination, but the 
river of life, and an ounce of crystallized sympathy 
will have more weight with them than a ton of the- 
ories and speculations. 

Therefore, to have power with men we must have 
sympathetic insight into their nature and needs — such 
an insight as comes, not from viewing them through 
the medium of books simply, but through the trans- 
parent medium of intimate personal friendship. Human 
nature is usually masked. Its real sentiments and 
deepest convictions shrink from the cold gaze of curi- 
osity, and run to covert on the approach of a stranger; 
and the way men avoid close contact with the average 
minister is a familiar experience. Yet, somehow, peo- 
ple flocked in throngs around One Man, and the most 
timid children and troubled sinners sunned themselves 
in His presence. It was because ' ' He knew what 
was in man ' ' and touched them at all points with His 
healing sympathy. 

It is not enough that we know men as they appear 
with Sunday manners in the sanctuary ; we must 
know them when off guard and self-revealed — in their 
real and not their artificial life. It is not enough that 
we know what they say or even what they think, but 
what they are at the motive fountains of their conduct 
and character. 

We must reconnoitre and explore the fortress 



SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 117 

which we are to besiege, discovering its secret gal- 
leries, mines and magazines, as well as the guns that 
frown from its walls ; or, to change the figure, we 
must study the patient whom we would cure, whose 
natural constitution, temperament and habits have so 
much effect in helping or hindering our healing work. 
A comprehension of human nature in all its phases has 
always been one of the strong points in the true leaders 
of the world. Men of splendid intellectual and moral 
qualities have failed to sway their fellows just for want 
of understanding and feeling with the men of their 
age. 

This insight is essential to our deepest earnest- 
ness. Beneath the surface of moralities our eye must 
fix upon the rooted alienation from God ; beneath the 
gay exterior we must see the secret woe, and through 
the trappings of wealth and fashion behold a soul 
shivering in rags and secretly moaning, ' ' I perish with 
hunger. ' ' These deeper facts of humanity must en- 
gage us ; but we must also view the grandeur that 
still lingers in the ruins of the Divine image in men, 
discover the jewels buried in the earth and see the 
groping and hear the sighing of that royal prisoner in 
the citadel of sin, and behold what a worthy being it 
is whom we are seeking to liberate and enthrone. 

It must be a sympathetic insight. Cynics like 
Diogenes and Swift and Voltaire and Carlyle have had 
insight of men, but to despise or despair of them. 
Wits like Rabelais, Cervantes and a swarm of satirists 
and comedians have had insight of men, but only to 
laugh at the frailties and absurdities. Our insight is 



Il8 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

to be that of the Christian, the brother and the friend. 
With purged eyes we are to see his sin and folly, his 
want and misery, and at the same time his greatness 
and possibilities, his sorrows and struggles, his yearn- 
ings and all-embracing hunger and thirst after some 
real good. And all this we must view in charity, our 
love for men being something more than a sentiment ; 
being, indeed, a sacrificial passion for their spiritual 
and temporal well-being. 

There is a study of man which is purely critical, 
which has no reference to his spiritual value or con- 
cern for his welfare; a study of him in the spirit of the 
mental and moral anatomist ; of the philosopher, or 
sociologist, or sentimentalist. To many students of 
human nature and human history man is only a dis- 
couraging and distressing problem. Said one of these 
bitterly, ' ' The more I know of men the more I love 
dogs." Antipathy to men's sins sometimes degener- 
ates into a scowling dislike of the sinner. The frivoli- 
ty, selfishness and hypocrisies of society result in a 
morbid and growing alienation from the haunts and 
homes of men ; the gulf widens, and the man becomes 
a recluse. In the solitude of his study he tries to for- 
get the ignoble, unresponsive crowd, with its petty 
perversities and pauper sensualities. 

But this is of itself a form of cowardice and sel- 
fishness that must be crucified, or he will surely lose 
personal power ; it will be sure to reveal itself in a 
coldness, or austerity, or haughtiness of manner which 
chills and hardens and repels those to whom he should 
be a friend, a father and a counsellor. 



SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 119 

If the minister be in sympathy with Christ and 
with His work, he will be in sympathy with men ; he 
will glow with the enthusiasm of humanity. Protracted 
years of college and seminary training and exclusive 
association with books and students often results in 
the preacher entering upon his work more in love with 
ideas than with men, in sympathy with his own class 
rather than with men at large. 

The true minister faces the world like the Byzan- 
tine Madonna, with hands outstretched toward all the 
race. He takes mankind into the light and warmth 
of his heart. He studies man through the eyes of 
Jesus Christ, along the lines of his nature as God made 
him, of his failure and of his needs and of his possi- 
bilities of perfect restoration and happiness. The effect 
of this is to impart pathos, intensity, patience, eager- 
ness and hope. No man now appears ' ' common or 
unclean ;" the soul is of incalculable value : that solves 
everything, leads to every sacrifice and effort. The 
study of man's original and indestructible preciousness 
is a constant support to his reverence and courage, 
stimulates an infinite and active and yearning love. 
This love being recognized by those to whom he min- 
isters, awakens a confiding response and gives him a 
peculiar psychic power. 

Such a sympathy is higher and broader than pity, 
solicitude or condescension; it is a feeling with and for 
men in the whole range of their life struggle. It is 
more than passive sensitiveness ; it is a lively and 
steadfast outgoing of heart and hand, a struggle to 
blend helpfully with other hearts and lives. It is an 



120 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

electric nerve, as delicate as the thread spun from the 
insect's bowels, which, floating in the air, attaches 
itself easily to the nearest object and becomes an aerial 
bridge. It projects itself into other natures and estab- 
lishes an invisible link of intercommunion, a spiritual 
telegraphy, that makes the interpretation of thought 
and feeling clear, and effective, and welcome withal. 

There are natures cold, reserved, selfish, which 
quite unfit their possessor for the true work of the 
preacher. And there are natures that, from ungenial 
environments, have grown undemonstrative and retro- 
active, or have found a narrow channel for their affec- 
tions and interests, so that literature, theology, criti- 
cism, science of some sort, have won, fascinated and 
enchained sympathies that the whole struggling world 
might otherwise have enjoyed. Such men cannot ex- 
pect that outflow of psychic energy in preaching which 
comes from a larger, livelier interest in men. 

The effective preacher will have heart-force ; an 
affluent, genial, frank, confiding nature that } r earns to 
blend itself with others, helping them to bear life's 
burdens. Philosophical, idealistic and abstracted habi- 
tudes of mind tend to paralyze psychic force by alien- 
ating the preacher from the living touch of the actual, 
current and concrete conditions and needs of men in 
their daily trials, and sorrows, and cares. 

Enthusiasm for man is fed by actual communion 
with the flesh-and-blood humanity, as found in garrets 
and mansions, in the roar of factories, the harvest- 
field, counting-room, nursery and school ; aye, at the 
village grocery, the local "primary," the court-room 



SYMPATHY AN FXKMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 121 

and the jail. The decorous festivities of the college 
and the grim passions of the labor strike, the pathetic 
sweetness of childhood's faith and the dark abysses of 
the aged skeptic's soul will all be included in the broad 
horizon of the preacher's sympathies ; nothing that 
concerns humanity will be foreign to his feeling. For 
all he will spend and be spent out of the affluent ten- 
derness of his own heart. 

Dr. O. W. Holmes, writing in the North American 
some years ago, deplored the weakening of the pulpit 
resulting from the ' ' destruction of the priestly char- 
acter of the preacher ' ' at the Reformation. He forgot 
that the true preacher is essentially of the priestly 
spirit, just in the degree that he possesses the heart of 
Christ, who, as the high priest of humanity, sympa- 
thized in all its temptations, sorrows and wants. He 
may hold the key of human hearts without claiming to 
have the keys of heaven and hell hanging at his 
girdle. His Christly manhood survives, even though 
he has sloughed off mitre, stole, chasuble and dal- 
matica. The fierce communists of Paris, scorning 
priestly pretensions, opened their hearts freely to the 
simple-hearted McAll and his gospellers. 

To contribute to psychic force, sympathy must be 
robust, and not effeminate. It is never indulgent to 
obstinacy, pride or indolence. It holds fast by God's 
righteousness, while it compassionates man's miseries; 
it condemns his sins, while stretching out strong hands 
to rescue him from them. It disdains to flatter or 
apologize, even while it refuses to cast stones at the 
transgressor, recognizing the peril of all and the 



122 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

proneness of each to sin. It is no languid pity, but an 
alert, hopeful and practical quality of soul that floods 
the sermon with life, warms it with charity and pro- 
pels it toward the hearer as the sinewy sailor propels 
the lifeboat toward the wreck. Sympathy with no 
nerve of truth in it makes a complaisant preacher, but 
he has no masculine grip of his hearers. They may 
feel his velvety touch, but will not be quickened by 
his tonic grasp. 

Sympathy must have in it inspiration to effort 
rather than mere soothing under life's misfortunes ; 
it is false when it leads men to pity themselves ; it 
should have more of cheer in it than tears, and heal 
wounds by rallying to further battle rather than by 
bearing them to the hospital tent. 

God's method with the despondent Elijah was to 
summon him to duty, and Christ's way of comforting 
Peter was to set him to strengthening his brethren. 
The modern pulpit seems to accommodate itself more 
to women than to men. It needs more iron in its 
blood, more of the heroic quality that strung tightly 
the nerves and sinews of the primitive Christians, the 
Puritans, the Covenanters ; otherwise, how is this ma- 
terialistic age, with its compromising and conventional 
Christianity, to get vigor and enthusiasm ? The Prot- 
estant pulpit has no weapon but the truth, and that 
truth to most men has become trite. The people are 
already familiar with all things sacred and profane 
through the omnipresent press. 

They come to church after a week's grazing of the 
cyclopaedic newspapers and magazines, so mentally 



SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 23 

ennuyi that they are not as easily interested in ethical 
abstractions, creed championships and apologetics as 
they were in more primitive times, when the catechism, 
a devotional book or two and the almanac were their 
mental and moral pabulum, when John Bunyan for 
fiction and Fox's Book of Martyrs for tragedy and 
Watts' s Hymns for poetry formed the library of the 
people. 

To-day the news from all over the world of every 
kind competes with the oft-repeated teachings of the 
pulpit. Nevertheless, men are still susceptible to the 
real and the natural when flowing fresh from heart- 
fountains ; and if we would make our message effective 
among the rival voices claiming their interest, if we 
would woo them to a life of consecration in a world 
that was never so fascinating, we must bring the gos- 
pel pulsing with soul throbs, overflowing with helpful 
humanities. 

In some men's nature sympathy is native and 
congenial; it grows wild; perhaps needs pruning and 
training. In others, it is almost an exotic; it needs 
cultivating; we must fertilize its soil and give it sun- 
shine and irrigation. It must be developed at what- 
ever expense, if we would be effective. Some men 
have to tear themselves away from their libraries, their 
metaphysics, their sermon- writing and mingle with 
the people in the home, the shop, the street, by the 
sick bed, wherever they are found in real life. To 
develop sympathy we must confide in the people, open 
our hearts freely to them, shorten the distance between 
the pulpit and the pew, win the people's confidence, 



124 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

be to them father, and mother, and brother, and 
friend; find out what lies at the root of their daily 
history, what they love and fear most. We must 
share the troubles and delights of the children and 
youths, the struggles and cares of toiling men and 
burdened women, and let the experiences of all, both 
high and low, touch us, blend with and color our 
thought and feeling ; and thus the sermon will be more 
and more a thing of life and reality. We must find 
out what men are hungering and thirsting for, and 
seek from God the supply. 

The preacher is in communication, not with a 
merely philosophic dream or theory of life, but with 
its actual, stern and pathetic facts; with the seeming 
cruelty of nature and the illusions of the world; with 
the vanity and turbulence of youth; the obduracy of 
unregenerate years. He combats the half- formed sin 
and lukewarm repentance, the sharp pain of regret 
and the rankling sting of unkindness, the weariness of 
hope deferred and a joyless life, the sickness of a 
present sorrow and the bitterness of a new bereave- 
ment, the consuming fires of unbridled passion and 
the weight of trouble that casts down the soul, with 
none to raise it again. He talks to the fathers of 
thankless children, to the young man about to enter 
life, to the weary seamstress, with her poorly paid 
work, and the young woman who seeks some clue to 
her destiny and the best mode of expending her 
energies, to the widow and fatherless, and to the 
prosperous, with their dangers and responsibilities. 

The contemplation of all these and many other 



SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 25 

phases of life, and the dealing with them in gentle, 
firm and loving truthfulness, will multiply and 
strengthen the cords of sympathy by which the 
preacher draws men to God. He will find his con- 
genial as well as his proper function and field in the 
common experiences of life — its business, sufferings 
and pleasures — not in the emotional transports of a 
vague and purposeless enthusiasm which has no 
reference to anything beyond itself, its circle or its 
church, and which leaves every-day virtues and simple 
offices of good for transcendental emotions, whose 
effects die with themselves. Alas for the congrega- 
tions whose pastors give them gems of polished 
thought instead of bread; who blow for them irides- 
cent bubbles of sentiment instead of offering the cup 
of salvation ! 

When the preacher is en rapport with his hearers, 
when a strong sympathy moves his own soul, it gives 
him power to read the souls of men, to comprehend 
what is transpiring within the bosom of at least cer- 
tain individuals. * ' Man, ' ' says Carlyle, ' ' carries 
under his hat a private theatre, wherein a greater 
drama is acted than is ever performed on the mimic 
stage, beginning and ending in eternity. " ' ' Not a 
heart," says Amiel, "but has its romance; not a life 
which does not hide a secret, which is either its thorn 
or its spur. Everywhere grief, hope, comedy, tragedy; 
even under the petrifactions of old age, as in the 
twisted forms of fossils, we may discover the agita- 
tions and tortures of youth. This thought is the 
magic wand of poets and preachers." Sympathy (ow, 



126 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

iraflog ) , a feeling with another, is a sort of normal 
clairvoyance, an elementary thought-reading. This 
was one thing which gave George Whitefield such 
power over an audience, that men cried out and 
women fainted under the revelations he made to them 
of their heart and life history. It was a familiar 
thing for him to ' ' indicate what his hearers were 
thinking about at the moment; and sometimes this 
was so striking as to give them an impression of 
almost supernatural insight." 

Human nature, while in its essential features it is 
the same in all men everywhere, yet presents a bound- 
less variety of phases in detail. The preacher must 
study these phases in the actual people he ministers to. 
Many a person is alienated from preaching because 
the man in the pulpit does not touch him. The teach- 
ing seems abstruse, metaphysical, idealistic — anything 
but human, familiar and practical. 

The minister is liable to judge of the thoughts 
and feelings and needs of the people by those of his 
own class, or by those of fiction, of the dramatist, or 
historian; and hence he is often addressing conditions 
of mind, phases of feeling, forms of temptation and 
experiences of life quite foreign to those to whom he 
preaches. He is too often addressing creatures of his 
own imagination, wasting his ammunition on men of 
straw, exploding shells in trenches long since deserted. 
He must find the real men, and women, and boys, and 
girls of his own parish, where they are most at home 
with themselves; where they are most sensitive, most 
conscious of need. He will thus set his sermons to 



SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 27 

running along the channels of their habitual thoughts 
and aspirations. ' ' There is a man that understands 
me; I will listen to him." People love the man who 
comprehends them in a brotherly and helpful way. 

Thomas Hughes, in Tom Brown's School Days, 
gives us a boy's impressions at hearing Arnold of 
Rugby's first sermon: 4< It was not the cold, clear 
voice of one giving advice and warning from serene 
heights to those who were sinning and struggling be- 
low, but the warm, living voice of one who was fight- 
ing for us and by our sides, and calling on us to help 
him and ourselves and one another. ' ' 

The value to the preacher's whole being of this 
constant study of human nature cannot be over- 
estimated or over-stated. The exalted value of men's 
souls and the pathetic mysteries of human life will 
have for him a fascination far greater than that of his 
printed book. It will be pursued, not in a critical or 
inquisitive way, but with the serious enthusiasm of 
one who has alighted upon an inexhaustible treasure — 
a problem of the highest moral interest. 

The student of history, of art, of the physical 
sciences, finds exhilaration and development, yet in 
these there is limitation. But in the study of men as 
immortal souls, freighted with infinite treasures of 
faculty and affection, infinite possibilities of happiness 
and misery, an endless career of growth and achieve- 
ment, one finds stimulus for all his psychic powers 
without a parallel. Here is a mine that grows richer 
the deeper we delve, a nature that grows grander the 
higher we ascend. Even the biologist, the novelist, 



128 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the poet, the historian, finds mental and moral enlarge- 
ment and excitement in the study of man; but the 
preacher who loves souls approaches his subject in a 
different spirit — with reverence, faith and affection — 
with both solicitude and hope. His concern is with 
the ethical, psychical and spiritual man, and here he 
will find scope for his intensest and broadest grasp of 
thought and feeling. 

Imagination also comes in to broaden our view 
and quicken our sensibilities. 

We think of each man as a little cosmos, popu- 
lated with thoughts, feelings, purposes and passions — 
an arena for tragic battle. We think what he has 
passed through in the bygone years and of what he 
may yet have to experience. We picture him as solv- 
ing the problems of life, as choosing the better or the 
worse part, as yielding to God or resisting His Spirit. 
We think of him as renewed in soul, starting out on a 
redeemed life, loving God and climbing heavenward. 
We picture the powers of heaven and hell striving to 
win him; we think of the heart of Christ loving him, 
and the imagination has added its force to the pathetic 
enthusiasm of the soul. 

And thus if the preacher has a parent's or a shep- 
herd's heart, he will grow daily in love for his flock, 
in tender sympathy for his children; he will find in 
his parish constant food for both his joy and his sorrow. 
He fears for them, hopes for them, yearns for them, 
till Christ be formed in them. He keeps in daily 
touch with them; is the recipient of their most sacred 
confidences. His sympathy is a magnetism that draws 



SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 29 

them to him. Thus he gains a power that may prove 
men's salvation. He will discover that almost every 
one of them, whether converted or not, has had a 
religious history. This is true even of the most god- 
less man who has come to adult years, however much 
his soul may be trodden into worldliness by respectable 
sin or trampled into the mire by the rush of swinish 
sensualities. 

There is a soft spot in every heart; would that we 
could find it ! But the man guards it jealously and 
fiercely, with an instinctive feeling that this is the very 
citadel of his soul, which no cold theological hands 
may touch and no human eye must look upon. Yet, 
to the magic touch of frank and genial sympathy these 
men will yield — even with the trust of children. 

It is this power of insight that discovers to the 
pastor the hearts of those who for months and years 
have worn an aspect of utter composure or restless 
defiance, while all the while the inner spirit was 
trembling on the verge of conviction. At last, under 
the penetrating warmth of the pastor's life and love, 
these hearts melt with the rush of a river whose ice 
barriers yield to the tender solicitations of the spring- 
time. 

I^et the preacher, then, cultivate his power of sym- 
pathy. Let him in every breath breathe in the life of 
his fellow men, every nerve of his body becoming a 
conductor of the electric force between his own heart 
and brain and those of his fellow men. The insulation 
of a human being from his fellows is death, and is 
complete in the grave. Our physical nature owes its 



130 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

existence and preservation to society. Neither life 
nor the propagation of life is possible for the solitary 
individual. Our emotional nature lives by love and 
self -surrender; if these die, it is dead. 

Even our intellectual nature can scarcely live and 
flourish in solitude. Surely, then, if as preachers we 
would become a healthful inspiration, a reforming, 
regenerating and uplifting force in society, we must 
implicate our brain, and heart, and life with the vital 
essence of that society. When the prophet laid his 
staff, by the hand of his servant, upon the dead boy, 
he remained dead; but when he drew near and 
stretched himself 'upon the lad, mouth to mouth, heart 
to heart, hand to hand, then the lad, thrilled with 
returning warmth, arose to life. 



The Psychic Power of Authority and 

Love 



chapter ix 

The Psychic Power of Authority and 

Love 



THE history of mankind, in every age and sphere, 
is a demonstration of the psychic power of 
authority, both in its objective and subjective 
forms, whether that impression be clearly defined to 
the subject or an irrational conviction. Whether 
among men the most degraded and brutal, or among 
men the most civilized and cultured, all are swayed 
and led by what impresses them as authoritative. 
There is an instinctive perception and recognition of 
a something which carries with it submission and 
obedience. Pride, passion, conceit or self-will may 
for a while rebel against recognized authority; but 
they are conscious of the unequal contest, and the 
conclusion is either the fatal violence of desperation or 
the humiliation of surrender. 

Authority in the moral realm makes its appeal to 
reason and conscience, and the combined consent of 
these two will generally carry the citadel. This is 
emphatically true in matters of the soul. The extent 
to which religious authority, as represented by the 
Church, the priesthood, the Pope, the creed and even 
the visible symbol, has dominated the world, is one of 
the marvels of history. It has been seen in the abject 

131 



132 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

submission of lofty intellects and haughty crowns, as 
well as in the slavish obedience of the more docile of 
men. 

In modern times and in Protestant churches there 
has been a marked declension of authority. The 
vicious excess to which Rome had carried its exercise 
brought about a reaction which has reached an 
extreme in our day ; which amounts almost to abdica- 
tion. Men whose calling it is to represent Him who 
" spake not as the scribes, but with authority," have 
so generally renounced their high function that, in sub- 
stance and manner and spirit, their message to the 
world is as void of authority as it is of virility. 

The vague and inconsistent attitude of not a few 
ministers of religion doubtless suggested the cynical 
division of the race into ' ' three sexes — men, women 
and the clergy. ' ' Almost the only men who seem to 
speak with authority are those speculators in ideas 
who, assuming the title of the " advanced " or " the 
higher critics," utter their oracular bulletins from the 
dim caves of German universities; and their Anglo- 
Saxon competitors who trot out their callow brood of 
speculations with not enough meat on them to furnish 
a child's lunch. 

Are there not many pulpits which count it a 
virtue to treat every postulate of theology as an open 
question, which give the people their opinions instead 
of ' * the truth as it is in Jesus ? ' ' 

He is not altogether a fictitious character who is 
represented as saying to his congregation: "The 
Apostle Paul remarks " (thus and thus), " and I par- 






PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND 1,0 VK. 1 33 

tially agree with him ! ' ' There are not a few who, if 
not exactly afraid to claim their soul is their own, are 
at least too morbidly modest to utter themselves with 
the boldness of conviction. "I venture to say, 
although you may not agree with me," and similar 
phrases are too familiar forms of address. The shep- 
herds seem ambitious to put themselves on a level 
with the sheep, and consult their preference as to 
which way they should be led. They shrink from the 
appearance of claiming superior wisdom and leader- 
ship, and some are content to be recognized as simply 
" a preaching brother," or, at most, the exponent of 
the average sentiment and life of the congregation. 
With some, it is oftener " thus say the scholars," or 
"thus says the poet," or "the philosopher," than 
" thus saith the Iyord." 

The days of "proof -texts," which were like the 
hammer and the fire in driving home and clinching the 
truth, seem to have been superseded by the days of 
cloudy illustration and fanciful analogies. The power 
of the prophet has been lost in the pathos of the 
pleader; and the pulpit, for the most part, is no longer 
a throne from which the Eternal speaks through 
anointed lips, but a platform for popular discussion of 
current social and religious themes. 

There are many notable exceptions to this state- 
ment, and not a few men of prophetic fire and pente- 
costal boldness, who make our hearts cry out, 
" Would that all the lord's servants were prophets ! " 
but the decay of authority in the pulpit is none the 
less conspicuous in this age of material earnestness and 



134 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

mental levity . A perverted and presumptuous socialism 
has subjected many of our pulpits to its leveling pro- 
cess, and the latter seem struggling to secure popu- 
larity with the ' ' masses ' ' at the sacrifice of power. 
But the world will never be led by following it, and 
the church and ministry that is to control men, that 
is to win confidence, and inspire reverence, and mould 
character, must speak with authority. Men in their 
more serious moments, in their real mental perplexi- 
ties and religious inquiries, yearn for authority, and 
can find repose in nothing else. There are in every 
congregation many sincere but unlearned souls, with 
an incapacity or disinclination for independent investi- 
gation, who are in a state of perpetual hovering, 
unable to alight; or having timidly touched ground, 
they are still fluttering and restless. To such the 
voice of authority falling from the Shepherd and Phy- 
sician of souls is a vast benediction, and their only 
way to certainty. It brings peace and rest; the tossed 
surface of their mind becomes like a calm lake, in 
which the heaven of truth may mirror itself. The 
clear recognition of authority is, to the critical and 
contentious, a quietus; even dislike of the truth can- 
not hold its own for long against it. I^ike the 
Roentgen ' ' X-rays, ' ' it has a power to penetrate even 
the fleshly indifference in which men's consciences are 
often imbedded, and so reach that slumbering faculty 
as to give it enlightened action. 

As the world grows in intelligence it refuses to 
submit to shams which masquerade in the garb of 
infallibility, yet the history of the last half century 



PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND IvOVB. 1 35 

shows that many of the most earnest minds, after 
tossing on the shifting waves of speculation, philoso- 
phy and doubt, have taken refuge in a so-called 
' ' infallible Church, ' ' because they had been led, by a 
logic (in which there was a lurking fallacy) to believe 
that authority resided there : and this largely because 
its priesthood and literature persistently claimed and 
pressed it into the foreground. That authority it 
insisted on, which antiquity, universality and unity 
warranted. With dignity, solemnity and unfaltering 
accent of conviction the Roman hierarchy has de- 
fended this claim till, in spite of many opposing facts, 
it has carried conviction to minds of a high order, as 
well as to the ignorant. 

The yearning for authority is natural and of the 
highest reason when the question is one that concerns 
the immortal soul; and the church and ministry that 
fails to answer it will fail to satisfy the heart or sway 
the will. Men are creatures of faith, and faith can 
only rest on the bed-rock of sovereign truth. 

There must also be the conviction of the immu- 
table. Faith only hovers restless if there be a symp- 
tom of change. It must appear divine also — must 
bear the credentials of a throne of eternal verity. 
Men yield to the authority of the man who speaks as 
an ambassador from the Heavenly King. Let the 
preacher carry in his word and manner, and tone, this 
quality, and it adds an almost irresistible power. And 
this is a quality that cannot be well assumed. It must 
spring from a deep conviction, a consciousness, solemn 
and controlling, of his commission and anointing for 
the high service of voicing the word of the Lord. 



136 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

When we have uttered God's truth we must not 
be over-anxious to defend it. It is better simply to 
keep on repeating it. It will vindicate itself. The 
truth has nothing to fear from the truth, nor from 
error, either; but it has something to fear from its 
over-anxious apologists, and we may even abandon the 
truth in our pursuit of its assailants. Despotic logic 
does not always mean divine persuasion. 

The temper of this age seems to oscillate between 
intensity of concentration and recklessness of conse- 
quences, between a passion for tragedy and a limitless 
frivolity; but if we look a little deeper, we shall dis- 
cover that a multitude of men are weary equally of the 
philosophy of despair and the opera bouffe of social 
hypocrisy; and they will put confidence in the man 
who has a serious faith, whose gravity of manner and 
depth of tone show his sense of the reality of things, 
the importance of life, the perils and possibilities of 
the men and women to whom he speaks, and the value 
of his embassy to them. 

Authority must wear the garb of gravity. Men 
have ceased to stand in awe of the minister as a 
''ghostly confessor " — as holding the keys of life and 
death ; but they are not yet willing to listen to a pulpit 
popinjay who prides himself in not being " minis- 
terial." There is a gravity which has nothing in it 
oppressive or chilling — a gravity which is the child of 
earnestness, and carries in it the pathos of a soul 
burdened with a great responsibility and a great love. 

To possess authority a man must have a clearly 
defined creed. He must know what he believes, and 



PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 1 37 

believe it with his whole soul. His Christian feeling 
may be broad in its sympathies and free from bigotry, 
but his doctrine must be a clear, deep stream, flowing 
between solid banks, else it will become a swamp or a 
morass. The expansive lake avails nothing to gener- 
ate electric power. But how different when its water 
flows through the close and rock-ribbed banks of 
Niagara ! 

To possess authority a man must have the spirit 
of mastery — mastery of himself, of his subject and of 
his method. Some men are by nature masterful — are 
born to rule; but even in such, self-command must be 
cultivated if they would command respect. Paul said 
to the people of I^ystra, ready to give him divine 
honors: "Sirs, we are men of like passions with 
yourselves. ' ' Preachers of the true apostolic succes- 
sion have learned how to ' ' keep under their body and 
rule their own spirit." They were "competent to 
curb erotic, erratic, eruptive forces in others, so far as 
they had recognized, developed and subjugated their 
own vehement and palpitating passions — no further. ' ' 
Masculinity must not be sacrificed to meekness. Pas- 
sive and passionless natures are destitute of magnetism. 
As in chemistry, fermentation, which, unrestrained, 
tends to corruption, rightly regulated, preserves sub- 
stance and heightens quality ; so the surgent passions 
in strong and disciplined men impart steadfastness to 
the will and dominion over other minds. 

Equally must he be master of his subject and the 
method of presenting it. ' ' The words of the wise are 
as goads and as nails fastened by the master of assem- 
blies, which are given from one shepherd. ' ' 



138 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

The preacher of authority will not propound 
truths in a hypothetical form. He will not say: 
' ' Does the soul die with the body ? ' ' He will use the 
affirmative form: "The soul does not die with the 
body; the soul lives forever. " The people respect a 
strong, self-reliant and fearless affirmation, declared 
boldly and in the name of God, which admits of no 
"ifs" or "buts," which descends from on high, 
claiming the assent of all without distinction. 

Another aid to authority is consecration. How 
many, in our day, have a secular air that speaks noth- 
ing of inward or outward sanctity! They affect a 
smart, airish, up-to-date, hale-fellow manner. They 
awaken little respect and less reverence as being 
ambassadors of the high court of heaven. In the 
pulpit they deal with sublime things in a low way, and 
with eternal things in a style that combines the wit of 
the comedian with the logic of the campaign orator. 
There is a lack of poise in the effort to be life-like, and 
of dignity in the aim to be entertaining; a manner 
quite foreign from Dryden's portrait of the minister: 

1 ' Nothing reserved or sullen was to see, 
But sweet regards and pleasing sanctity; 
Mild was his accent and his action free. ' ' 

Self -consciousness, the obtrusiveness of the ego, 
is antagonistic to authority. It is impossible to be 
seriously influenced by a vain preacher. ' ' The more 
pains,' ' says the Archbishop of Cambray, " an haran- 
guer takes to dazzle me by the artifices of his dis- 
course the more I despise his vanity. I love a serious 
preacher who seeks my salvation, not his own vain- 



PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 1 39 

glory. ' ' Vincent de Paul wrote, with, reference to the 
humble dignity and sobriety of certain clergymen in 
his day, rinding expression in their outward form and 
manner: " What the eye sees goes more straightly to 
the heart than what the ear hears, and we believe 
more unquestionably therein. There is a somewhat 
indescribable in the exterior of God's own servants — a 
something lowly, recollected, devout, which springs 
from their inward grace, and which reacts upon the 
souls of those who are brought in contact with them. 
There are men among us so full of God that it is 
impossible to look at them without being touched by a 
mysterious power. ' ' 

The basal source of authority is divine truth. 

The men of this twentieth century do not bow to 
the sanctions conferred by hoary antiquity or ecclesi- 
astical ordination; office, and function, and reverend 
titles do not carry the weight they once did. When 
men ask of us, " By what authority do you claim our 
ears ? ' ' we must produce something more than a 
sheepskin written over with Latin credentials and 
bearing the impressive seal of a university. Among 
Protestants, even the ' ' Councils of the Church " is no 
longer a phrase to conjure with; we cannot summon 
venerable tradition, nor ecclesiastical law, nor the 
power and penalty of excommunication to enforce 
authority. The spirit of mental and spiritual inde- 
pendence is rampant and everywhere abroad. Our 
audiences are jewels, rather than disciples. Besides, 
where the element of fear enters, there freedom of 
choice disappears. 



14-0 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

Therefore, the dynamic force of authority resides 
simply in the Truth itself and the Divine source from 
which it springs. To speak with authority a man 
must apprehend clearly, believe heartily and feel 
deeply that the thing he utters is the unadulterated 
truth of God. The Word as a divine revelation, a 
divine message, a divine law, a divine gift, must have 
taken full possession of the preacher's intelligence and 
heart; his whole being must bow before it with 
implicit faith and adoring reverence. He must him- 
self have obeyed it; he must rest upon its granite 
foundations for his own soul's salvation. Then he 
is in a position and spirit to utter it with an authority 
that springs from evidence and with the force of con- 
viction that springs from experience. "I believed; 
therefore have I spoken." " We speak the things we 
do know, and testify of that which we have seen." 

In listening to some men you feel repelled by an 
impression that in their heart of hearts they do not 
realize or believe a word of what they are saying; that 
they have never experienced aught of the thing of 
which they are speaking. In listening to others, you 
know at once that they are on fire within with faith 
and conviction of the truth, and that in earnestness of 
purpose their lives correspond to their speech. And 
these are the only men that reach you. It is simply 
impossible not to listen to them. In the name of God 
they lay hold on your understanding and conscience, 
and you cannot escape them. When you come near 
to them you feel the heat of the hidden fire, and you 
know that this divine fire has been kindled by 
Almighty love. 



PSYCHIC POWER OP AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 141 

1 ' If God sent Francis de Sales to teach men, Pere 
de Condren seemed fit to teach angels," says one of 
his biographers. And another says: " There was all 
the difference between Pere de Condren and most 
other men that there is between one who relates to 
you things he has seen with his own eyes and one who 
only repeats what he has been told. ' ' Naturally, this 
deep personal insight into spiritual truth gives a man 
a great spiritual perception, not merely of ordinary 
character, but of the spiritual condition and needs of 
his audience, so that he seems to them to speak with 
supernatural authority, to read their very thoughts, to 
take a diagnosis of their souls and furnish the antidote 
to their sins and sorrows; and they surrender to him, 
as to a learned specialist, for their moral maladies. 

Again, he will speak with authority who is con- 
scious of the tremendous weight and consequences of his 
message. Realizing the need of an authoritative utter- 
ance on matters profoundly vital to the soul in such 
critical conditions, he will base his message on nothing 
less than the throne of God itself. The importance of 
this supreme appeal, even the incarnate Word Him- 
self reveals in such repeated assertions as, "The 
word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's 
which sent me," " My doctrine is not Mine, but the 
Father's which sent me." If He whose word could 
wake the dead and cast out devils felt the pressing 
need of freighting his message with the august author- 
ity of His Father, how much more we who, in con- 
scious insufficiency, echo that word ! 

And again, he will speak with authority who 



142 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

' ' dwells in God and God in him. ' ' Christ said : * ' The 
words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself, 
but the Father that dwelleth in Me; He doeth the 
works." And every one who takes up His message 
and repeats it to the world must, in an humbler but 
as real a way, speak as the Spirit which is in him 
giveth utterance. It was said of one that " he habit- 
ually preached as if Jesus Christ was standing by his 
side," and nearly every one can recall some herald of 
the Cross whose face almost shone like that of Moses, 
and whose whole presence and expression awed the 
hearer as of one who spoke as an oracle of God. 

Personal authority, emanating from weight and 
worth of character, is another dynamic factor. There 
are men, to be sure, whose mere self-assertion, whose 
air of superiority, whose owl-like assumption of wis- 
dom or ponderous voice, carries with it an impression 
of importance; but only to the ignorant or the undis- 
criminating. The discerning will not fail to discover 
beneath the lion's skin the elongated ears, and in the 
affected roar the ridiculous bray of the less noble 
beast. The man of authority in our day must possess 
mental and moral volume and value. His depth, and 
height, and largeness of soul must be manifest, as well 
as his freedom from hobbies and eccentricities, from 
pomp and pedantry. Simplicity and unaffected con- 
descension toward the unlearned, serenity and patience 
with the disputant, lucidity and precision in state- 
ment, will all add to the psychic effect of authority. 

Authority brings down high looks, disarms skep- 
ticism, awakens confidence, silences cavil, sobers levity, 



PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 1 43 

produces mental repose and makes a supreme demand 
upon the will — a demand which is supported on the 
one side by reason and on the other by conscience. It 
changes the preacher's attitude from one of defense to 
one of attack. The Great Preacher never took the 
defensive. The Great Apostle to the Gentiles did not 
instruct Timothy to preach apologetics, but to ' ' preach 
the word. ' ' The command of the Master as to preach- 
ing always implies an authoritative proclamation, and 
primitive preaching was always of this character. By 
manifestation of the truth they commended themselves 
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Psy- 
chic force goes with positive, unmitigated, unfaltering, 
uncompromising affirmation of the truth, an affirmation 
as calm as it is fearless, in which boldness and hu- 
mility, dignity and gentleness, are nobly blended. 
There is no strength in a human soul that can ulti- 
mately withstand a persistent and reiterated ' ' Thus 
saith the I^ord. ' ' The man on bended knees will kiss 
it as an extended sceptre, or as a descending rod of 
iron it will dash him in pieces like a potter's vessel. 

And of love. 

This tone of authority must, however, be modu- 
lated and sweetened by love, that mystic force that 
pervades the kingdom of heaven, and which saturated 
the spirit of Him who ' ' spake as never man spake. ' ' 

Science tells us that the heat and light of the sun 
must needs shine through the earth's environment of 
atmosphere, or it would scorch and blind those it now 
warms, and to whom its " light is sweet. " Equally 
true it is that naked authority to a perverted and 



144 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

rebellious soul would only oppress, or harden, or shut 
it up to impotent desperation. Clothed in an atmos- 
phere of love, recognized as the pathetic imperative of 
love, the soul opens to it as frozen nature to the 
genial pressure of the resistless springtime. Icebergs 
of defiant unbelief, scorning the tempests, melt down 
and surrender when caught in the warm gulf -stream 
of a Christly tenderness in the preacher. A nature 
that hardens at dictation becomes pliant and malleable 
in the fires of sympathy. 

If we analyze the psychic power of this love, we 
shall see in it the element of surprise. Men are so 
used to seeing every one intent on his own interests, 
gains and pleasures, doing everything because it pays, 
that they at first suppose the preacher is actuated by 
some selfish motive to increase his church for mere love 
of fame or power. When they discover unselfish love 
as his motive, they are as much surprised as if they 
came suddenly on a blooming garden and crystal 
spring in a dreary desert. They are disarmed, at- 
tracted, hidden chords in their hearts are touched, 
they surrender to the soothing or stimulating magic. 

This psychic result is as natural as the product of 
any other law of human nature. The heart is longing 
for love ; while men may treat it lightly as a senti- 
ment, they blindly yearn for it as a necessity, and 
timidly or impulsively turn toward it as plants in a 
room turn toward the sunny window. This instinct 
is the ' ' lost chord ' ' which we must feel after with a 
hand that has been nailed to the cross of Christ. It is 
a wandering and timid child who must be wooed by 
lips that have kissed the bleeding feet on Calvary. 



PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND 1,0 VE. 1 45 

To say that the preacher is completely swayed by 
a passion so pure and perfect would place him quite 
above the infirmities of human nature ; if he live near 
the Lord whom he serves, he will often be mortified 
by the discovery of the contrast with that ideal. A 
flash-light of introspection will reveal depths in 
which pride and love of praise are lurking. The 
illumined minister will sometimes hate and despair of 
himself on this account. 

It is related of L,acordaire that when he returned 
from the pulpit of Notre Dame he would sometimes 
prevail on one of his associates to scourge him with the 
knotted rope of the penitent, to subdue the pride 
which the applause of his sermon awakened; and many 
a mighty preacher, like Whitefield, has fasted and 
wept, on his face, before God, to exercise the false 
love of fame and power which would usurp the sacri- 
ficial love of souls. Doubtless the secret of much 
wasted intellectual power and the alienating of some 
men from our congregations is due to the absence of 
the winning energy of love. 

The preacher who humbly seeks an increase of 
this all- important charm, this divine fascination, will 
find it in continual study of the pathos of human life 
and of the heart of his Master. Have we not discov- 
ered that the human channel through which the love 
of God is to find access to men must be in accord and 
vital touch with the power that flows through him ? 
Electricity loses its force in so far as it is encased in a 
non-conducting sheath, and you cannot make a flame 
pass through ice. Alas for the non-conducting pride, 



146 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

the icy intellectuality of our pulpits ! There is such a 
wide difference between the reasonableness of truth 
on which we are apt to depend and the ' ' sweet rea- 
sonableness of Jesus Christ.' ' Insignificant is the 
number who are impelled to faith and action by the 
force of logic in comparison with those who are drawn 
by their affections. And mere reasoning can control 
the affections about as easily as a flame can be bound 
and led by a rope. To have authority with men, they 
must be loved much. L,ove is the only positive and 
creative force that works among men. Its effect is 
always life-begetting, organizing and energizing. If a 
man has love, let him have it more abundantly ; if it 
be lukewarm or diluted with self, let him get it purged 
and heightened by the Spirit's fire into a Christ-like 
fervor. If he has not love, let him not think to preach. 
I*et him turn to speculation, or politics, or romancing 
for fame and gold — but let him not trifle with souls for 
whom Christ died. 



The Psychic Power of the Holy Spirit 



CHAPTER X 



The Psychic Power of The Holy Spirit 

ON the day of Pentecost a band of peasant evangel- 
ists faced the world with a new religion. They 
were furnished with neither prestige nor earth- 
ly power; they had neither a priesthood, nor temple, 
nor learning, nor formulated creed, nor even organiza- 
tion or visible leadership. They had only a Gospel 
and the testimony of personal experience. But their 
word was with power. With that weapon of fire they 
attacked the iron fortresses of Antiquity, Supersti- 
tion, Philosophy, Skepticism, luxury, Pride and Po- 
litical Despotism, and everywhere prevailed. They 
confounded the wise, convinced the infidel, converted 
the depraved and reared the fabric of Christianity on 
the ruins of every false faith. 

And through all the ages since, wherever Christi- 
anity has made substantial progress; it has been by a 
Spirit-quickened Word in the lips of Spirit-endued men. 
Christianity is the child of the Divine Spirit through 
the seed of the Divine Word; its sustenance and de- 
velopment are from the same eternally fresh and afflu- 
ent source, and its power of victory over the world is 
" not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith 
the Lord." 

Speculators in opinions talk glibly of ' ' the religion 
of the future," which they say is to supersede the Gos- 

147 



148 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

pel; but the religion of the future must always answer 
the deep question, ' ' Hath God spoken V ' That ques- 
tion is triumphantly answered when the old Gospel 
is preached with the fresh power of the Pentecostal 
Spirit. 

When He who was the Incarnate Word was about 
to enter on His mission the Spirit visibly rested on 
Him; and it was then the Father said, ' * Hear ye Him. ' ' 
When He returned from the wilderness of fasting, 
temptation and triumph, ' ' He returned in the power of 
the Spirit into Galilee and taught in their synagogues, 
being glorified of all." When He preached in Naza- 
reth He began by quoting and applying to Himself 
Isaiah's Messianic prophecy, "The Spirit of the L,ord 
is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach 
the Gospel." When He was preparing His disciples 
to take up His work, He gave them a three- fold injunc- 
tion and promise. He commanded them to tarry in 
Jerusalem till they should be ' ' endued with power 
from on high," and added the promise, "ye shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence;" 
and, again, "ye shall receive power when the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be my wit- 
nesses." 

In all these utterances the power of the Divine 
Spirit is represented as the essential condition of the 
effective ministration of the Word. In obedience to 
His command they tarried in Jerusalem, watching, 
praying and waiting till Pentecost, when the promise 
of the Father and the Son received a mighty and 
marvelous fulfilment; " they were all filled with the 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 49 

Holy Spirit;" trie symbolic cloven tongues of fire sat 
upon each of them, and ' ' they began to speak with 
other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." 

At this all Jerusalem was moved, and the multi- 
tudes came running together to hear, repent, believe, 
and thousands in a day were made the willing subjects 
of the Nazarene, whom they had but lately rejected 
and driven out of the world. Thus was inaugurated 
the work of the Gospel ministry and the campaign of 
Christianity for the conquest of the world. It is clear 
that the anointing of the Holy Spirit was, then, the 
essential and supreme condition of fitness in the preacher. 
Every man who is called to preach the Gospel is under 
the same injunction and is heir to the same promise. 

That which was an essential preparation for Apos- 
tolic preaching is equally essential to every true suc- 
cessor of the Apostles, and its possession is his highest 
credential. Without this power, preaching is but 
"sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal;" with it, the 
Gospel becomes the ' ' power of God and the wisdom 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. ' ' 
Judith, presenting herself before Holofernes, clothed 
herself in her richest attire — her bracelets, her ear- 
rings, her fillets of purple, her pins of gold. In addi- 
tion to this, "God gave her splendor." Thus the 
preacher may clothe himself with truth, with logic, 
with rhetoric, imagery, illustration and art, but these 
are not enough for his high purpose. Except he be 
transformed and transfigured by the Spirit of God, and 
"clothed with salvation as a garment," he never can 
be the agent of Divine transformations. 



I50 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

A moral diagnosis of the material upon which the 
Gospel wrought on the day of Pentecost, and still 
operates on the occasion of every Pentecostal sermon, 
reveals human nature destitute of the life of God, a 
chronic alienation from the truth and a ruling passion, 
armed to resist its argument and appeal at all points. 
But what a drastic and revolutionary effect that first 
sermon had! As the word sounded in men's outward 
ear it resounded to the abyss of their souls. It was 
sharper than a two-edged sword; and, as it pierced, 
they were conscious that it was wielded by an invisible 
but resistless hand; convictions flash into their hearts 
as the lightning cleaves the night; their sin against 
Christ looms like a spectre of judgment; they tremble 
in the grasp of their surging emotions. And as they 
smite their breasts they cry out, " Men and brethren, 
what shall we do ?" 

Thus we see fallen, perverted and prejudiced human 
nature, in the very beginning of the Gospel's mission, 
absolutely conquered and transformed by spiritual 
power. Human nature is still fallen, and ruled by the 
same passions; the preacher's commission is the same 
— to herald the Gospel; and the Gospel is Jesus Christ's 
own message. The Word as touched by the senses has 
passed into the heavens; yet the moment before he 
ascended, and as the supreme incitement to his fol- 
lowers in their preaching he said, ' ' I/), I am with you 
always, with you to the end of the age. ' ' Therefore 
our model and rule to the end of time is the same mes- 
sage, to the same world, by the same Spirit, with the 
same unction and sanction as that which He possessed. 



the psychic power of the hoi,y spirit. 151 

The preacher is to think Christ's thoughts, to feel 
Christ's emotions and to do Christ's works ; nay, 
"greater works," He said, " than these ye see me do 
shall ye do, because I go to the Father." The promise 
has been literally fulfilled wherever a spiritual ministry 
has held forth the living word; the deaf are made to 
hear the joyful sound, the blind to behold the L,amb of 
God; palsied souls spring into holy action, and the dead 
in sin awake to righteousness and live for Christ. This 
is the perennial fact of the Gospel — a living word 
spoken by living men, producing holy and eternal life. 
The operation of the Divine Spirit may be occult, 
but the fruits are in beautiful, convincing evidence. 
Christianity is unique in these respects, and quite out 
of the field of all human religions. The latter peep, 
mutter, stammer; Christianity speaks as light and as 
thunder speak. It utters a "Thussaith the I^ord!" 
Other religions dream, speculate, philosophize; Chris- 
tianity affirms, proclaims, revolutionizes and shows 
radical and eternal results. 

The Holy Spirit is the supreme force in the preacher. 
What life is to the body, that is the Holy Spirit to the 
minister's work. What the sun is to the planet, that 
the Holy Spirit is to the mind and heart of the minister, 
imparting a divine and developing warmth to his affec- 
tions and illuminating his intellectual processes. It is 
the fertilizing and reproductive power in his soul. 

The energy of the Spirit begins with the casting 
down and out of self. It is as when the Angel of God's 
presence wrestled with Jacob, humbling his native 
pride, breaking his native strength, while in that very 



152 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

tour Jacob received the supreme blessing — ' ' power 
with God and with men." The preacher is tempted 
to prepare and preach his sermons from some form of 
selfish motive; it may be gratification of intellectual 
pride, or a lurking, unacknowledged and even undis- 
cerned love of applause; it may be desire for a 
crowded house, or solicitude to maintain his position or 
climb to a higher one; it may be the natural but still 
selfish desire for conspicuous success. It may be — 
alas! what may it not be, in the endless variety of 
motives and aims — divorced from the simple glory of 
God and good of souls ? 

Now, in as far as these motives sway him, they 
weaken the force of his message as a Divine communi- 
cation. But nothing will free him from them but the 
baptism of fire; the pervading, searching, saturating 
flame of the Holy Spirit, seizing upon him and bring- 
ing all into subjection to the law of Christ, who said, 
1 ' I came not to do mine own will, but the will of Him 
that sent me, and to finish His work." 

There are preachers whose pulpit work yields 
apparently insignificant results, for all their elaborate 
preparation. Their discourses are logical in structure, 
clear in exegesis, rich in illustration, beautiful in style 
and graceful in delivery, but they fall with the weight 
of an iridescent icicle on an admiring but unmoved 
congregation; no souls come to them in penitence, no 
finny shoals fill their net, no spiritual children rise to 
call them blessed, and demons laugh at their attempts 
to exorcise them. The secret cause of their failure is 
the absence of spiritual power. They need not a new 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 1 53 

Gospel, nor a new field (though they are apt to seek 
one or the other) , but a Pentecost in their study, a 
fiery baptism in their souls. 

Rev. Wm. Arthur has well said: "A piece of 
iron is dark and cold; imbued with a certain degree of 
heat, it becomes almost burning without any change 
of appearance; imbued with a still greater degree, its 
very appearance changes to solid fire, and it sets fire 
to whatever it touches. A piece of water without 
heat is solid and brittle; gently warmed, it flows; fur- 
ther heated, it mounts to the sky. An organ filled 
with the ordinary degree of air which exists every- 
where is dumb; the touch of the player can elicit but 
the clicking of the keys. Throw in, not another air, 
but an unsteady current of the same air, and sweet 
but imperfect and uncertain notes respond to the 
touch; increase the current to a full supply, and every 
pipe swells with music. Such is the soul without the 
Holy Spirit; such the changes that pass upon it when 
it receives the Holy Spirit, and such its action when 
it is endued with the power of the Holy Spirit. ' ' 

This power is demonstrated in various ways in 
the preparation and delivery of the sermon; — to begin 
with: 

In the preparation. 

I. In the discovery and interpretation of the truth 
itself. It is of highest concern to remember that the 
things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned. How 
can we claim to speak in the name of God and utter 
1 ' the word of the I^ord ' ' except we have had inter- 
preted to us that word by the Spirit of God, whose 



154 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

function it is to take the things of Christ and reveal 
them unto us ? 

The preacher is a prophet. The priestly office 
ended with Christ, the prophetical is continued in the 
preacher: " To another is given prophecy." This 
function is not, indeed, for the predicting of future 
events not before revealed; but he is nevertheless to 
speak ' ' as the oracles of God. ' ' He is to stand be- 
tween the living and the dead till the plague be 
stayed ; to hold forth the world of life. 

He is not responsible for the way in which men 
treat the message, but he is responsible that he deliver 
it with all faithfulness. And how is he to do this if he 
has not received it from the throne ? What the pro- 
phet tells forth he must first be told. In the Acts we 
read that ' ' Judas and Silas, being prophets also them- 
selves, exhorted the brethren and confirmed them;" and 
when Paul urges us to covet the ' ' spiritual gift ' ' of 
prophecy, it is because "he that prophesieth speaketh 
unto men to edification, and exhortation and com- 
fort." 

The ancient prophet, when the Spirit of the I^ord 
came upon him, was made to see, as his most exalted 
vision, "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that 
should follow," though he himself comprehended little 
of the full significance of the vision ; and the preacher 
of to-day enjoys highest communication from above 
and utters his grandest message to the world, when 
1 ' Christ and him crucified ' ' fills the horizon of his 
awed and delighted contemplation, and He "whom 
not having seen he loves ' ' becomes a vivid and moving 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 1 55 

reality \ whose glory he proclaims and whose claims he 
urges as if the invisible were standing by his side; as if 
his eyes beheld and his ears heard, and his lips simply 
voiced what Christ was speaking to him. 

' ' The same Spirit that summoned out of the remote 
future the Messiah to appear before Isaiah as a * I^amb 
led to the slaughter ' summons the same Saviour out of 
the remote past as a L,amb dying on Calvary." The 
difference between presenting a dead Christ on the 
cross as a historic event long past and presenting a 
dying Christ as revealed by the Spirit to the preacher's 
soul is all the difference between a tame and formal 
deliverance, which neither awakens the conscience nor 
kindles emotion, and that forceful and penetrating 
preaching which thrills and quickens to penitence and 
love. 

Intellectual processes, critical discriminations, 
comparison of exegetical authorities, all will not suf- 
fice to rightly interpret the word of God, except that 
in all and above all, the student has the specific 
anointing of the eyes by the Holy Spirit. It is this 
holy fire that will cause the pure gold to flow from the 
ore, the pure savor to ascend from the censer which 
makes it a " sweet savor unto God and a savor of life 
unto men. ' ' 

The manner in which the Spirit operates may be 
inexplicable, but the fact is sufficiently transparent 
and comprehensible. 

All the natural powers are raised above their 
normal condition ; the insight of the mind becomes 
more penetrating and exact ; the inductive processes 



I56 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

and imagination are purged and quickened and the 
power of the truth on his own soul is increased. His 
motives, aims and affections in handling the word are 
freed from deceit and pride ; an intense reality invests 
the whole process ; he is practically, though scarcely 
consciously, thinking God's thoughts, and his soul is 
expanding with emotions akin to the Divine. The 
love of the Spirit for men pours its warm, genial 
tides through his heart, and he finds himself pleading 
with men as a man pleads for his own life. He 
enters into Paul's experience when he cried "as 
though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in 
Christ's stead." 

Herein lies his power with men. The pulpit loses 
its hold on the life and thought of the people when 
it loses its spiritual eyesight. If the preacher has but 
the eye to see and the tongue to express the glories 
of the kingdom of God, men will hear him gladly. 

When William Blake, the poet-painter, was asked 
if he saw the rising sun, he answered, (i No ! No ! I 
see a heavenly host, and I hear them chanting, ' Holy I 
Holy ! Lord God Almighty, Heaven and earth are full 
of thy glory ! ' ' ' He saw with the spiritual eye and 
heard with the spiritual ear of the poet; and he who 
cannot thus see and hear, to him has not been given 
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. 

A lens may be made of ice through which sunbeams 
passing will set on fire materials placed in their focus; 
but not so with the light of truth passing through a 
cold heart. The glowing temperature which the fiery 
baptism gives is essential in the medium of transmis- 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 57 

sion. If the preacher's soul be as a candle lighted by 
the Lord, if his lips are touched by the live coal from 
God's altar, if his lamp is continually filled by the oil 
flowing from the living olive tree and tended by Him 
who walketh amid the golden candlesticks, there will 
be rays of truth streaming from that soul into others, 
along which the Spirit's secret influence moves. 

If he receive and hold the divine magnetism as 
the Ley den jar holds electricity, he then only needs 
the divinely appointed wire to conduct it to his audi- 
ence. But that connecting medium is not of earthly ma- 
terial, it is that Word which Christ meant when He 
said : * ( The words which I speak unto you, they are 
spirit and they are life." Its form may be infinitely 
varied, its essence must be the same. It is the passion 
of the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ. 

The Holy Spirit will clarify and intensify the 
preacher' § faith in the Word. It is a part of the bap- 
tism of the Spirit to plunge the belief of the brain 
into the very blood of the heart, so that when the man 
preaches his hearers will catch the contagion of his 
vital faith. It was thus with the worldly man who 
heard Charles Kingsley. " I went," he said, "as you 
told me — you were right. That man delieves, and he 
sent me to my Bible to read and pray. " The tone and 
accent of conviction is a powerful factor in preaching — 
an element utterly wanting in the professional, per- 
functory and parrot-like essays of men whose doctrine 
is merely hereditary or churchly. 

The Spirit of God will give freedom to the preach- 
er' s soul and tongue. Doubtless there is a " bondage 



158 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

of the pulpit ; ' ' it is a bondage of doubt, and some- 
times of fear, and sometimes of the manuscript; some- 
times of self-consciousness, sometimes of the audience 
as a company of spies and critics ; but ' ' where the 
Spirit of the I,ord is there is liberty. ' ' It is wonder- 
ful what independence of circumstances, of men's 
judgments, of nervous solicitude, it confers ! As the 
flame leaps to heaven in bold, free, victorious energy, 
regardless of opposition, subduing everything to itself 
— so a spirit-inflamed minister is as free as were those 
Hebrews in the furnace, their bonds consumed, them- 
selves walking harmless with one like unto the Son of 
God. 

' ' At such times the soul walks on high places ; it 
walks automatically and with sovereign force, without 
constraint or urgency of volition. The man himself 
is amazed at the rush with which both thought and 
utterance come. The reserved forces break into play. 
Things are at hand which had seemed inaccessible. 
Previous knowledge is as if transfigured. The whole 
spirit is full of energy, full of light. It rejoices to 
reveal itself in action and in speech ; and its words 
are instinct with brightness and power." — Dr. R. S. 
Storrs y Led. p. ioj. 

What limit is there to the force of that man in 
whom rolls and surges the deep, shoreless sea of divine 
inspiration ; who is anointed with the oil of gladness 
above his fellows; who is mightily conscious of the 
ever blessed God, as a concrete and personal inhabi- 
tant, a living sympathetic quickener of thought and 
emotion ? He is upborne by a power invisible, but as 
real as is the sea to the swimmer who floats on its 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 59 

emerald bosom, or as the ambient air to the sailing 
eagle. His utterance will be a blending of serenity 
and energy ; he will be free from the nervous tension 
and unnatural strain of voice and manner which ex- 
haust both himself and his audience. 

It is indeed impossible to express or overestimate 
the force represented in the fullness of the Spirit. It 
might be compared to the incalculable force of Niagara, 
whose placid bosom and mighty plunge carry a power 
competent to generate electric power and light for a 
hundred great cities. 

L,acordaire, speaking of his call to preach unex- 
pectedly at Notre-Dame, says : ' ' Moreover, it is with 
the orator as with Mount Horeb: before God strikes 
him he is but barren rock, but as soon as the Divine 
hand has touched him, as it were, with a finger, there 
burst forth streams which water the desert. ' ' 

Again, the Holy Spirit bestows the energy of a 
divine insatiable yearning for the souls of the people ; He 
imparts that thrilling, vitalizing power with which, in 
the beginning, the Spirit of the Lord brooded over the 
face of the waters, till out of darkness and chaos there 
emerged a world of order, beauty and fruitf ulness. One 
will have the experience of which Paul speaks in Gal- 
atians, iv.: " My little children of whom I am again 
in travail till Christ be formed in you;" and in I. 
Corinthians, iv., 15: " For in Christ Jesus I have be- 
gotten you through the Gospel.^ 

What is this but that secret, vital movement of 
the Divine Spirit in his most sacred and pathetic energy 
involved in the birth of souls, in which exquisite pain 



160 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

and exquisite desire mingle in one soul, ready to die 
that others may be born into the kingdom of heaven ? 
This is not a natural stress and agony of desire, but 
the Divine Spirit mightily quickening in the preacher's 
soul infinite yearnings to reproduce, in the image of 
Christ, the life that swells and pulsates in his own 
breast. 

In the pulpit. 

But not only must the preparation of the sermon 
itself, from the choice of theme to the peroration 
or application, be under the guidance of the Spirit ; 
not only must interpretation, argument, illustration 
and all the product of meditation in the study be influ- 
enced by the illumination and impregnation of the 
preacher's mind and heart, but he must have the 
enduement of spiritual power in the act and process of 
delivery. 

As one cannot carry fragrant ointment shut up 
in the palm of his hand and unnoticed : the per- 
fume will reveal itself — so the man of God in whose 
soul and sermon a spiritual essence dwells, will betray, 
unconsciously, to the congregation his secret. Even 
in his ordinary life, 

1 ' When one who holds communion with the skies 
Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise, 
And once more mingles with us meaner things, 
It seems as if an angel shook his wings — 
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, 
That tells us whence his treasure was supplied. " 

Much more will this appear when the Ambas- 
sador, direct from the Throne, receiving his message, 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. l6l 

as it were, face to face with the Eternal, confronts the 
expectant people. He will be recognized by them as 
clothed with something more than secular or scholarly, 
or oratorical interest. If his face does " not shine like 
that of Moses coming down from the mount, with daz- 
zling glory, yet there will be something in his mien, 
his bearing, his action and utterance that will impress 
the beholder with the thought, ' This man has been 
with Jesus and learned of Him.' " 

In the act of preaching the power of the Holy 
Spirit operates along the nerves of the preacher's 
whole being, producing results as real in the psychical 
realm as in the physical realm does electricity or 
gravitation. Both are mysterious and inexplicable ; 
both are consciously felt as an experience, and both 
are visible in their results. Effects are produced upon 
the preacher's native faculties and upon those of the 
congregation, which are supernatural and cannot be 
accounted for by any known laws of the human con- 
stitution. 

Will any one doubt that the disciples, as they 
preached at Pentecost, were conscious of a new energy 
working through them, giving them new interpreta- 
tions of the words of Christ, new understanding of the 
Old Testament Scriptures, new boldness of faith, new 
love and zeal for the salvation of men ? In every way 
they were in a condition of mental and moral inspira- 
tion and exaltation, and they boldly and promptly 
answered those who wondered and those who scoffed, 
by quoting the prophetic promises of the pouring out 
of the Spirit and declaring this to be the fulfilment 



1 62 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

thereof. And the effects justified their claim. The 
men whom not even the words of Christ had moved, 
whom the awful pathos of Calvary had not touched, 
were cut to the heart, in deep humility confessing 
these despised disciples to be " men and brethren," and 
anxiously seeking of them help in the cry, ' ' What 
must wedo?" 

Now, as men are so constituted by their Creator 
as to respond to Him when the right chords in their 
nature are struck by a cunning hand, the psychic 
touch of the Spirit and the psychic answer will be 
coincident. An experiment in physics, familiar to 
the modern student, may illustrate this. Such is the 
relation between the waves of sound and waves of 
flame, that when a certain note is struck upon a musical 
instrument held near a column of gas flame the latter 
is thrown into lively agitation, while to every other 
note it is impassive. In the same way, there is a tone 
and quality in the spiritual character and expression 
of the preacher by which the hearts of men will be 
stirred to faith, repentance and love, while they would 
remain senseless and unresponsive to the man who 
spoke, however eloquently, on the lower plain of mere 
worldly wisdom or aesthetic inspiration. The only 
explanation we can give is in the language of Scrip- 
ture — ' ' There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of 
the Almighty giveth him understanding. ' ' 

The dynamic force of the Spirit-informed and 
Spirit-impelled preaching is due, then, to its being 
pertinent to the purpose of God and the susceptibilities 
of the hearer. The Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI^Y SPIRIT. 1 63 

through Apostolic lips, spoke a universal language. 
Every man heard, or thought he heard, those men 
speaking in the tongue in which he was born. Even 
so to-day, through the lips of the minister, the Spirit 
speaks the native dialect of souls. Each hearer thinks 
himself addressed. The preacher seems to read his 
very thoughts and to be acquainted with his life ; nay, 
he often interprets him to himself. He understands 
now the blind groping and dumb pleading of inartic- 
ulate yearnings and fears ; he sees depths and heights 
in his nature hitherto suspected but unexplored, and, 
spell-bound, he gazes wistfully at the preacher and 
wonders ' ' whence hath this man this knowledge, 
having never learned my private history nor looked 
into my heart ? ' ' 

The man who preaches in the power of the 
Spirit produces impressions which no mere eloquence 
can effect. Before that divine light which radiates 
from his word the veil of darkness is rent from the 
mind ; opposition to the truth surrenders, the frozen 
affections melt, the reluctant will awakes to action, 
conscience declares, ' ' I ought ! ' ' desire cries, ■ 'I would ! ' ' 
and the whole man responds, ' ' I will ! ' ' 

The Holy Spirit, like the gentle flow of the 
river of God's pleasures through the soul, will impart 
both to thought and utterance a freshness, liveliness 
and naturalness that make it seem quite new and 
original, like the day dawn and the stars. In point 
of fact, there are few original men in any age. 
Goethe says pointedly : 

"In the world there are many echoes, but not 



164 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

many voices. ' ' But even an echo may be thrilling as 
a celestial note if it be that of the Alpine horn among 
the Swiss heights. The straining after originality is 
often a pitiful exhibition of vanity. Nature is always 
sufficiently original, and especially when washed in 
fresh showers, or rent by lightning, or shaken by storms, 
or bursting into springtime. And when the preach- 
er's soul, enriched with truth and awakened by med- 
itation, is further wrought upon by the heavenly 
powers, shot through by the electric flashes, and 
shaken by the supernatural energies of the Spirit, he 
will speak a mightier message and a newer gospel 
than that of the scribes and pharisees, whose pompous 
platitudes are moldy beneath their purple. 

How to obtain spiritual power. 

To obtain this power the first step is to render 
honor to the Holy Spirit. 

We must recognize His personality and true 
Deity. We must honor, trust and adore Him as 
possessed of all divine attributes; omniscient, to know 
all our needs; omnipresent, so that we do not need to 
search for Him or wait for Him; omnipotent, so that 
nothing is beyond His power to bestow on us or work 
in us or for us, or in those to whom we preach, so 
that what is impossible with men is easy with Him. 
We must think of Him as the full and exact repre- 
sentative of all that Christ was as the Way, the 
Truth and the Life, His specific function being to 
render vital the word and effective the work of Jesus 
Christ: the very soul of Christ, the living ful- 
filment of his promise: " Lo ! I am with you alway, 
even to the end of the age. ' ' 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 65 

It is right for us, therefore, to address our 
prayers to the Holy Spirit as to the Father and the 
Son. We should remind ourselves that all the divine 
operations in our hearts, from the moment of the New 
Birth till the entrance into Heaven as holy and victo- 
rous beings, are through His power and wisdom and 
love. 

We must remind ourselves continually that 
while it is the ' ' word of God ' ' we use as the instru- 
ment of faith, and the Cross of Christ as the radiant 
point of salvation, the Holy Spirit alone can make the 
former a living word and the latter the ' ' power of 
God unto salvation. ' ' We must never forget that this is 
the age of the Spirit's administration, and that while 
He glorifies Christ we must glorify Him. We must so 
honor Him as to accept every impulsion given by Him 
as God's own action on us, respond to His every 
prompting, reverently surrender our whole being to 
His possession and dominion, and so believe and obey 
Him that His unhindered power may work through all 
our powers — the faculties of a sanctified body, soul 
and spirit. 

Zoroaster required his followers, the Persians, to 
quench their fires from time to time, and rekindle 
them from burning coals in the temple of the Sun, 
thereby reminding them that fire was Heaven's sacred 
gift. And so the preacher must daily renew at God's 
altar the celestial flame, reminding himself of his 
dependence on the heavenly fire to kindle in other 
hearts religious emotion and aspiration. 

To fulfil his mission to men in the way most 



1 66 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

effective, he should cultivate, also, a profound sense of 
responsibility. He knows that faithfulness to his 
calling means nothing less than the use of talent raised 
to its highest efficiency and of opportunity to its full- 
est extent. He knows that his native powers, how- 
ever cultivated, are utterly inadequate ; that God ex- 
pects him to avail himself of supernatural "power 
from on high ;" has commanded him to seek for it till 
he obtain it. 

I^et him get imbued with Paul's conception of 
preaching, for it is the divine ideal for all time. How 
the Apostle emphasizes the necessity of spiritual 
power ! he regards it as the very essence and soul of 
preaching. When Christ from the heavens commis- 
sioned him, it was to perform a transcendent and 
supernatural work, viz., to "open the eyes of men 
and turn them from darkness to light and from the 
power of Satan unto God." (Acts, xxvi., 18.) 

He had no confidence in his mental grasp, his 
learning or his zeal. He coveted spiritual power, and 
called men to witness that his preaching was ' ' not in 
word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost, and 
in much assurance." "My speech and my preach- 
ing," says he, "were not with enticing words of 
man's wisdom, but with demonstration of the Spirit 
and of power, that your faith should not stand in the 
wisdom of men, but in the power of God." And, 
again, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that 
the excellency of the power may be of God and not 
of men." 

And such power is to be felt rather than de- 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OP THB HOLY SPIRIT. 1 67 

scribed or analyzed. It resides in, it permeates a 
man's whole being and the entire circle of his activi- 
ties ; it cannot be localized, it cannot be identified ex- 
clusively with any one of them. It is felt in the 
solemn statements of doctrine and also in the in- 
formal utterances of casual intercourse ; it is felt in 
action no less than in language, in trivial acts no less 
than in heroic ventures; it is seen in the very expression 
of the~countenance: an unearthly beauty, whose native 
home is in a higher world yet which tarries among 
men from age to age. 

It is nothing less than His spiritual presence 
irradiating upon His servants ; they live in Him, they 
lose something of their proper personality ; they are 
absorbed into, they are transfigured by a life alto- 
gether higher than their own. His voice blends with 
theirs, His hand gives gentleness and decision to their 
acts. 

Importance of the subject. 

The state of Christendom in this twentieth cen- 
tury reveals, in an impressive way, the vital and para- 
mount importance of the subject we have been discuss- 
ing. The line of cleavage in the visible church of this 
new era is already manifesting itself to be, not the line 
that divides Calvinism from Arminianism, nor Baptism 
from Pedobaptism, nor Congregational Independency 
from Churchly Conformity, nor even Protestantism from 
Romanism, but the line which divides a spiritual from 
a secular church and ministry. 

In one direction, men, both of the pulpit and the 
pew, and of all evangelical creeds, are drawing together 



1 68 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

in conference, study and prayer for the development 
of the spiritual life on Pentecostal lines. In another 
direction the secular spirit has assailed the very chairs 
of Theology and Biblical Interpretation in our schools ; 
depth and earnestness of conviction concerning the 
mission and life-force of the Church are retreating 
from the pulpits and pews of many of our popular 
churches, to find a refuge and a sphere in Keswick 
Conferences, and Salvation Army barracks, and 
Oriental Missions and Alliances, and Orchard Beach 
Assemblies and Christian Endeavor movements and 
others of kindred aims. 

Meantime, the assaults of skepticism are not 
directed, as formerly, against any particular doctrine 
of the Bible, nor against the Bible as a whole, simply, 
but against the very existence of the Supernatural. 

In the beginning of the last half century, 
Cardinal Wiseman, in the course of a theological 
lecture, said : ' ' Fifty years hence the professors 
of this place will be endeavoring to prove, not 
transubstantiation, but the existence of God." He 
foresaw that the battle of the giants would be not 
over the Thirty-nine Articles, but over the primary 
question whether there be a spiritual world or a 
personal Divine Spirit. This seemed like a pessi- 
mistic view at the time, but a broad survey of the 
literature of to-day presents some ominous signs of its 
truth. 

In what direction are we to look for an antidote 
to the materialistic spirit and trend of popular thought? 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 1 69 

I am profoundly convinced that the only sufficient 
vindication and defense of vital Christianity and the 
only effectual weapon of its advancing conquest is a 
ministry endued with the power of the Holy Ghost. 
Is it too much to say that the preacher of the Gospel 
is the trustee of human faith ? The place he holds as 
a social factor has been secured, not from admiration 
of his learning or eloquence, nor from his official 
appointment, but because, first of all, he stands in 
every community as a witness to that divine instinct 
which recognizes in the operations of nature and in 
the human soul and in history the immanence and 
sovereignty of a personal God He appeals to the 
sense of a higher and diviner reality in human life, 
and offers for man's satisfaction spiritual and eternal 
verities. He appeals to the latent instinct and yearn- 
ing for immortal happiness. 

1 ' Man, ' ' says Jacoby , ' ' is a yonder-sided animal. ' ' 
' ' Man, ' ' says Dr. Hedge, " is a yonder-minded being, 
an embodied hereafter." But these are ideal con- 
ceptions, largely these instincts are overborne by 
the preponderance of things utterly secular; the powers 
of the world to come have, in social and business life, 
been dethroned. 

The pulpit champions man's spiritual nature and 
eternal possibilities. In the midst of the turbulent de- 
mands and glittering deceptions of the passing world it 
insists upon the claims of the soul and of the eternal fu- 
ture. The preacher points to ' ' a far more exceeding 
and eternal weight of glory' ' as the heritage and privi- 
lege of men. He stands for God as though God did 



170 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

speak through him; and it is his business to justify- 
that claim. The stupendous claims of the preacher to 
a commission from the eternal Throne and to a right 
of aid from a supernatural force make it imperative 
that he should prove his credentials as the organ of 
Divine influences by spiritual victories and trophies. 

The actual condition of at least some sections of 
the Church and its ministry might be represented in the 
reply of those Kphesians to Paul : ' ' We did not so 
much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given" 
Rev. B. B. Pusey in his Historical Enquiry into the 
Theology of Germany puts the case in a parable on 
this wise : 

" I have heard how, once upon a time, the Chris- 
tian faith heard of the threatening and formidable in- 
cursions of her foes, so she determined to muster her 
preachers and teachers to review their weapons, and 
she found, beyond all her expectations, everything 
prepared. There was, namely, a vast host of armed 
men ; strong, threatening forms, weapons which they 
exercised admirably, brightly flashing from afar. 
But as she came near, she sunk almost into a swoon ; 
what she thought iron and steel were toys ; the 
swords were made of the mere lead of words, the 
breastplate of the soft linen of pleasure ; the helmet 
of the wax of plumed vanity ; the shields, of papyrus 
scrolled over with opinions ; the spears, thin reeds of 
weak conjecture ; the cannon, Indian reed ; the powder, 
poppy seeds ; the balls, of glass ! Through the in- 
dolent neglect of their leaders, they had sold her true 
weapons, and had introduced these ; nay, they even 



THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 171 

made her former warriors, whose armor of faithfulness 
and strength were proved, contemptible. Bitterly did 
religion weep ; but the whole assembly bid her be of 
good cheer ; they would show their faith to the last 
breath. 'What avails me,' she cried, 'your faith, 
since your actions are worthless ? Of old, when I led 
naked, unarmed combatants to the field, one martyr, 
one warrior faithful to death, was worth more to me 
than a hundred of you in your gilded and silvered 
panoplies ! ' " 

The parable interprets itself ; and while we hope 
and believe better things of the Church, so far as some 
portions of the host of preachers and teachers are con- 
cerned, it is a picture full of serious suggestion. No 
words can picture the grandeur and solemnity of the 
position of the " Ministry of Reconciliation." Oh, won- 
derful work ! To be the organ of communication be- 
tween a holy and happy God and unholy and unhappy 
men ! To be an active and inspired instrument in that 
mysterious transformation by which the sons of Adam 
become the children of God; by which a new character 
is communicated to men, crowned with infinite and 
eternal blessings ! 

Such a work might lure an archangel from his 
seat. Let us not fail to grasp this incomparable 
honor with equal humility and avidity ; and, with in- 
telligent enthusiasm, seek by every means to become 
' ' vessels unto honor, sanctified and meet for the 
Master's use and prepared unto every good work." 
(2 Tim. xi., 21.) 

With what jealousy should we seek to be purged 



172 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit ! How 
should we humble ourselves to be the least of all men 
in our poverty of spirit, simply ambitious to love and 
to labor for them. Fervently, patiently and persist- 
ently let us press toward the Cross till, winding our 
arms about it and clinging there, bathed in its glory 
and thrilled by its life, we shall carry into our work a 
perennial and pentecostal power. 



Unrealized Ideals 






CHAPTER XI 



Unrealized Ideals 

THE ideal and the real in the preacher's work are 
apparently separated by a great gulf; but they 
should never be regarded as contrasted. Strictly 
the ideal is the conceived and vital, yet unborn or un- 
developed real. It is the real not yet incarnated into 
the actual — hovering as a beckoning angel in the 
horizon. 

The ministry of the Gospel, beyond any other 
calling, suggests to each aspirant a sublimated life and 
work. The minister who possesses the apostolic call, 
impulse and aim; whose devout soul is seized upon by 
the lambent flame of religious enthusiasm, evolves some 
infinitely fair creation, and hope points to its full real- 
ization, at least in the distant years. 

What true preacher at middle life does not recall 
the fair portraiture of the man, the ambassador from 
heaven, the shepherd of Christ's flock, which adorned 
in earlier years the picture gallery of his imagination ? 
What a noble picture it was! How pure from earthly 
stain! how full of seraphic fervor! how brave and un- 
selfish in service, wedded to noble poverty! how happy 
in simplicity of motive and zeal in action! how digni- 
fied in humble bearing ! how salutary and loving in con- 
versation with men ! how intimate and constant in com- 
munion with God! With mind spiritually illumined, 

173 



174 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

soul rapt into eloquent utterance by the sublimities of 
your theme, with voice modulated to the thunders of 
rebuke, the pathos of entreaty and the clarion tones 
of triumphant faith, you saw yourself standing before 
eager and silent throngs, an apostle of God confessed! 
Such was the ideal. Alas! how far distant, as yet, we 
are from its full-rounded realization! In truth, to most 
men, for all their early dreaming, middle life reveals a 
rather commonplace reality; and inspiration, with 
broken wing, limps painfully along, with growing 
sense of dissatisfaction, through failure to apprehend 
that for which we were apprehended of Christ as his 
ministers. 

Why have we not attained our ideal ? 

If we can answer that question, there is hope of some 
higher character and work still left for us. Doubtless the 
causes of disappointment are many, and do not all exist 
in any one case. The idealist in any form of merely 
earthly aim is doomed to disappointment; for life, if 
divorced from the spiritual and eternal, is essentially 
illusive. In so far as its pivotal point is self and its 
horizon earth, life is a vain show, a dance of shadows, 
an eager chase of mocking and receding beauties. 
Could we personify the aoblest ideal of the merely 
" natural man," we should need to include in the pic- 
ture a viper sleeping in his bosom, destined to waken 
one time or other, and a cypress wreath upon his brow, 
be that brow lifted never so proudly. Let a true genius 
conceive a sublime ideal, let him seek to reproduce it, 
you will hear him mourn over his failures. His efforts 
will, perhaps, produce something admirable; they will 



UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 75 

satisfy everybody but himself. He will be like the 
greatest poet of Rome commanding that his immortal 
work be burned at his death; like St. Cecilia break- 
ing her musical instrument when she hears in the dis- 
tance the chorus of angels. 

But the ideal of the man whose life is hid with 
Christ in God, and who has become a partaker of the 
divine nature, cannot be too lofty or radiant in moral 
features — nor has it any inherent element of decay or 
ultimate disappointment, for ' ' He shall perfect that 
which concerneth us." Truly the function and aim of 
the minister of Christ is essentially and immeasurably 
grand : 

" It well might fill an angel's heart, 
It filled the Saviour's hands." 

It has in it all the features of immortal worth and 
beauty. In it there is scope for unlimited development 
in every affection and faculty. Its object overtops all 
others, its motives blend the human and divine, its 
force combines the finest elements of native eloquence 
with the unction of the Holy Spirit. 

So long as it transcends not the pattern outlined 
for us in the Scriptures, there is nothing in the ideal 
of Christly or Apostolic character and service, as 
painted by the most fervid fancy, that can outreach a 
reasonable and practical attainment. It can be trans- 
ferred to the sphere of actual experience without 
dimming its luster or shrinking its symmetrical propor- 
tions. Concrete illustrations of such actualized ideals 
are seen in a Paul, a Chrysostom, a St. Francis, a 
Chalmers, a Wesley, a Baxter, a Martyn, a Judson, a 



176 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

Gordon, and others well known to history, together 
with many a man beyond his parish unknown save to 
the recording angel. L,uminous witnesses these, shin- 
ing sentinel characters all along the Church's history, 
telling that the real ministry may closely approximate 
the ideal. 

Why, then, do most of us fall strangely short of it ? 

Perhaps our portraiture has not been drawn from a 
divine model, nor from any tt ue standard, but is simply 
the outgrowth of egotism and worldly ambition. 

Consider that disappointed and misanthropic 
genius Dore, whose illustrations have won for him a 
wide, if not an exalted reputation. Starting with a sen- 
sitive organization and tender affections, he became the 
victim of ambition for praise as a painter in oil. It 
was characteristic of him to ignore model and law, and 
to develop his powers according to his own capricious 
fancy, exclaiming, * ' My mind is my model for every- 
thing!" His egotism led him to think no laudation 
could exceed his merit. He sought to startle the 
world by the number and variety of his original con- 
ceptions and the rapidity of his execution. He aimed 
to cause a sensation and secure a medal from the 
French Academy. He caused a sensation, he failed 
to gain the medal, and he died of a broken heart. 
Might not his ambition and his failure find many a 
parallel in the ranks of the ministry? Each of us 
knows some man now living and scarcely gray-headed 
whose once tender and aspiring soul has been embit- 
tered, whose passion for greatness, or at least popu- 
larity, has scorched the freshness out of his affections, 



UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 77 

who is growing prematurely old and fretful. He has 
abandoned hope, because success eluded him; and has 
it not been because his ideal was a brilliant vanity ? 

The men are not few whose ideal is intellectual 
ascendency, literary culture and distinction. The 
spiritual and sacrificial elements are absent from their 
conception. But a preacher had better toil in ob- 
scurity with only mother- wit, practical sympathy, an 
English Bible and the teaching Spirit to show him how 
to work for his fellowmen than to mount to a con- 
spicuous and sesthetic ministry in which only the cul- 
tured class shall know or care about him. 

The divine, Christly ideal of the ministry brings us 
into service for the whole people. An ideal ministry 
makes talent, scholarship, refinement, superiority of 
every sort a debt to the world, rather than a luxury or 
an ornament. "Not an act of Christ's life, nor a 
word from his lips, gives any evidence that he would 
have tolerated the awful anomaly of clerical life in 
which a man ministers placidly in a palatial church to 
none but elect and gilded hearers, with all the para- 
phernalia of elegance around him, and with culture 
expressed in the very fragrance of the atmosphere, 
while ' Five Points ' and ' Boweries ' are growing 
up uncared for by any labor of his, within hearing of 
his organ and quartette." (Prof. Phelps.) 

Sometimes an apostolic man revolts at the very 
popularity and position which his genius has brought 
him. Hear Robertson of Brighton, that man the most 
distinguished of his generation as a preacher, saying: 
" I wish I did not hate preaching so much; the degra- 



178 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

dation of being a ' Brighton preacher ' is almost in- 
tolerable. I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed; but I 
think there is not a hard-working artisan who in his 
work does not seem to be a worthier and higher being 
than myself. I do not depreciate spiritual work. I 
hold it higher than secular. But how humiliated and how 
degraded to the dust I have felt in perceiving myself 
quietly taken by God and men for the popular preacher 
of a fashionable watering-place; how slight the power 
seems to be given by it of winning souls, and how 
sternly I have kept my tongue from saying a syllable 
or a sentence in pulpit or on platform, because it would 
be popular!" This is from the man who has been 
called the Arnold of the English pulpit. 

With some men, while their ideal may have been 
noble, failure to realize it is to be traced to mental or 
physical indolence, or both; to dreaminess or vagrancy 
of habit, or, what is worse, to moral cowardice. There 
may be a sentimental yearning for ideal excellence. In 
fond revery the poetic temperament imagines a career 
and character invested with the noblest features; but 
the nerveless will does not impel to action, self-indul- 
gence procrastinates, and the heart, enamored with its 
own emotions, lolls on its pillow of dreams when it 
should be patiently plodding toward its goal. 

A pleasant nest and popularity following in the 
wake of talent, a comfortable income and a loving 
family, the luxury of desultory reading and the lounge 
with congenial friends, all combine to cool the fervid 
glow of spiritual aspiration and weaken the high reso- 



UNREALIZED IDKALS. 1 79 

lution to climb to a unique and original superiority in 
character and work. Sometimes an environment of 
sheer worldly cares, the coarse necessity of making a 
small salary support a large family with liberal tastes, 
anxieties arising from the crookedness of parishioners, 
or the total depravity of things that cannot be made to 
go right in church life, and, perhaps, physical maladies 
or family sorrows — all may prevail to chill our enthusi- 
asm, and turn our Pegasus into the wingless toiler on 
the tow-path. 

Perhaps the spirit and example of the people by 
whom we are surrounded, their pell-mell chase for 
material wealth, and luxury, and ease, for condition 
rather than character; the social atmosphere of the 
conceited, commonplace and uninspiring men, even in 
the ministerial office, with whom we are thrown in 
contact, tend to lower us to their level and generate a 
secret skepticism as to the reasonableness of our ideal. 
We learn to doubt whether its attainment is practicable 
for us ; and if so, whether the world wants such char- 
acters or could appreciate them ; and so we grow shy 
of the romantic, and suspicious of our guardian-angel, 
who may yet be beckoning us on to spiritual superi- 
ority. 

Another reason is our instinctive dread of loneli- 
ness. We are too gregarious. We shrink from that 
solitude of life and of spirit which separates all great 
and lofty souls from the multitude. True, the man of 
large and noble and original nature knows his kind, 
and lives with them as the ordinary man does not and 
cannot. The mountain is an integral part of the 



l8o PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

landscape, a familiar and beneficent factor of its 
beauty, dignity, fertility and wealth ; but its cloud- 
piercing peak, even when surrounded by other peaks, 
must always be solitary. 

A great work of art has something incommuni- 
cable about it. In every high, ideal experience there 
is a sense of loneliness; the distance it is removed 
from the common standards and methods is clearly 
marked by the deepening consciousness of isolation, 
loss of companionship and sense of human sympathy 
from those for whom we really live and labor as well 
as from our comrades in the ministry. In the silent 
solitude where only heaven and the Divine presence 
environ the soul, one must be content to dwell as far as 
his deepest feelings are concerned. 

It was there Christ dwelt. But most men tire of 
that solitude even for an hour. They hunger for 
companionship ; their eyes, instead of peering within 
the veil to see God's face, yearn for the familiar faces 
of men. They seek books, newspapers, periodicals, 
clubs, assemblies, society ; and like those angels of 
the vision who * ' when they stood upon the earth let 
down their wings," the soul loses its power of flight, 
treads the level of ordinary men and adapts itself to 
their standards. 

Sometimes our ideal is not attained because its 
salient features are adapted to an obsolete order of 
things, or a foreign environment. The susceptible 
student finds in the seminary library the memoirs 
and works of a Chrysostom, Pascal, Savonarola, 
Knox, Lacordaire, Pastor Harms, McCheyne, or 



UNREALIZED IDEAI<S. l8l 

Henry Martyn, and he is fascinated. From one or 
all lie selects features which he combines in his model 
preacher and pastor. But his attempts to train his 
thought and feeling to journey along the way of their 
"diaries," or later on, to work upon their methods, 
to train his flock to the church life they diffused, or 
to dare enterprises to which they were impelled, all 
fail. His preaching in their style, dealing with phases 
of thought and habits of life prevalent with the people 
to whom they ministered, proves to be, in large part, 
beating the air. 

He lives in a different age!; new kinds of temp- 
tation, new forms of social life, have to be dealt with ; 
the church to which he is attached has other tradi- 
tions and usages ; other issues have arisen, and new 
adaptations to the actual wants of the people must 
follow. In his pulpit the splendid orations of a Bos- 
suet or Jeremy Taylor, the stately movement of a 
Robert Hall or Chalmers, are found as incongruous 
and worthless to him as was the armor of Saul to the 
stripling David. It is well for him that he has not 
attained his ideal in such a case, for if successful, it 
would only be to find himself out of harmony with his 
period, and a mystic, or a philosopher, or a controver- 
sialist in an age and among a people who require a 
man and preacher adapted to their real life and current 
thinking and suffering and struggle. There are some 
triumphant defeats of which victory herself might be 
proud. 

But when our ideal is just and in harmony with 
our native talents and mental make-up, then we are 



1 82 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

to cherish and guard it from decay ; we must strenuously 
keep our souls alive to its pursuit, we must not lose 
our faith in its attainment : 

"To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin." 

Regarding the oft-despised " air castle," Emerson 
said : ' ' Build your castle in the air ; where else 
should castles be built ? Only see to it that you put 
foundations under it." Cloud-built towers, piled up 
by winds and adorned by sunbeams, will fade when 
the sun sets, and fall into wreck when the next breeze 
strikes them ; but ideals of character and life-work 
have no such airy genesis. They are children of the 
heart and intellect, and that, too, when the affections 
of the soul are healthy and normal, unwearied and 
unsophisticated ; yes, they are oft begotten by the 
Spirit of God. They are essential to the best develop- 
ment of character and the fairest, noblest forms of 
service. 

Mere ambition for the rewards of success will lead 
to unspiritual tone, narrowness of sympathy and a 
distortion of moral symmetry. For all that is most 
valuable and enduring in life, we must be carried 
above ourselves by some inspiring example or con- 
ception of the virtues in transfiguration ; some pure, 
uplifting aim must be kept like a pole star constantly 
before us. 

I^et the minister not forget to read the memoirs 
of the great and consecrated souls that have adorned 
the Church, the higher illuminati whose biography 
and work, whose struggles and victories, have rescued 



UNREALIZED IDEAI£. 1 83 

human nature itself from ignomhry, have made the 
Church revered by thinking men, and constrained us 
thankfully to say, as we studied their portraits, "I, 
too, am a minister of the Gospel." 

To attain our ideal we must resist secular, even 
literary, scientific, or literary seductions. The world, 
even in its higher forms of socialist, political or 
aesthetic philosophies, is not to be led by following it. 
Social philosophers in this day are busy in their en- 
deavors to build up society without God. The 
prophet in the pulpit must insist on Christ as the 
foundation stone and chief master-builder, and work by 
His plans and with His materials. 

In his naturalistic and materialistic environments 
the preacher's soul is exposed to several forms of 
temptation to lower his standard. A dreary sense of 
unreality sometimes steals over him. He is dealing 
with things unseen, with powers intangible by the 
senses. If he is of a sensitive nature, with variable 
temperament, he will sometimes be startled and 
shocked to find himself preaching what he does not 
fully believe, or is not sure that he has experienced. 
As an ambassador, he cannot have an invariable im- 
perative ; or as a herald, a constant enthusiasm ; he 
cannot see nor hear much of the fruits of his work. 

Is it strange that he is sometimes overwhelmed 
with a fear of its unreality ? That he reaches after 
something tangible, perhaps social problems ? But this is 
not preaching. It is not enough that his teaching be 
true; his work is to hold forth 7evealed truth, spiritual 
facts and forces. And there can be no greater mis- 



184 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

take than to suppose that spiritual preaching is ideal, 
but not practical. Preaching is most practical when 
it is most spiritual. 

"With all the sordidness of the times," says a 
great living preacher, " the preachers that have been 
the most powerful have been the most spiritual.' ' 
We must seek to regain the sense of reality by a clearer 
vision and firmer grasp of essential spiritual verities. 
The preacher who seeks reality by preaching secular- 
ises, however true, will not find the reality of preach- 
ing. 

Your ideal, my earnest yet discouraged brother, 
is not yet actualized in your experiences ! Well, 
remember there is, after all, something to be glad of 
even in that. Thorwalsden, it is said, on the com- 
pletion of his finest work surveyed it with a feeling of 
sadness from the very fact that it satisfied him. 
That exquisite genius, that severe critic of himself, 
could see nothing to be improved, and he interpreted 
the fact as a token that his talent had reached its 
culmination, and that henceforth the fires of aspira- 
tion would begin to pale. Doubtless there is a 
secret, providential reason for the fact that your ideal 
still eludes your grasp. Faith and Hope must have 
a distant goal, or fall asleep in bowers of ease and self- 
sufficiency. 

Hence it has been said : "In our life there is 
always some dream yet to be fulfilled. We have not 
come to the point which we feel sure has yet to be 
reached. Thus God lures us from year to year up 
the steep hills and along roads flat and cheerless. 



I 



UNREALIZED IDEAI^. 1 85 

Presently, we think the dream will come true ; pres- 
ently — in one moment more — to-morrow at latest ; 
and, as the years rise and fall, the hope abiding in the 
heart and singing with tender sweetness, then the 
end, the weary sickness, the farewell, the last breath — 
and the dream that was to have shaped itself on earth 
welcomes us, as the angel that guarded our life, into 
the fellowship of heaven."* 

This, which was written of life's ideal in general, 
is intensely true of the minister's hope. No loftiest 
spirit in the Church's history of heroes ever thought 
he had reached his ideal ; the noblest and most unsel- 
fish mourned to the last their failure ; but each holy 
and prayerful effort brings us nearer to our goal. 

In conclusion, the Divine-Human Ideal, for all 
time and for all Gospel heralds, is Jesus Christ himself. 
What simple pathos in that word, ' ' He went through 
all their cities and villages preaching the Gospel!" How 
near that picture brings him to us! His character, 
spirit and methods as a preacher are clearly drawn; 
they are as inimitable as they are transcendent, and 
they may be wrought in us through the habitual, ador- 
ing contemplation of him. 

In the life of St. Francis of Assissi — of whom 
Ernest Renan said, ' ' There have been but two Chris- 
tians, Jesus and St. Francis" — there is a touching 
illustration of this impregnation of the soul with 
Christ. This truly apostolic preacher, wedded to Pov- 
erty and expended in Love as a herald of the Cross, in 
his ungodly youth, while sadly seeking rest and purity, 



* Dr. Joseph Parker. 



I 86 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 

once visited the church of St. Damian, among the Urn- 
brian hills, in the midst of a cypress wood. Dilapi- 
dated and served by a poor priest who had scarcely the 
wherewithal for necessary food, the chapel contained 
naught but a stone altar and a picture of the Crucifixion. 
The Crucified One, bearing an expression of ineffable 
calm and gentleness, instead of closing the eyelids in 
eternal surrender to the weight of suffering, looked 
down in self-forgetfulness, and its pure, clear gaze 
seemed to say, " Come unto me." 

Before this poor altar Francis prayed: ' ' Great and 
glorious God, and thou, Lord Jesus, I pray ye shed 
abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. Be 
found of me, L,ord, so that in all things I act only in 
accordance with Thy holy will." 

Thus he prayed; and, behold! little by little it 
seemed to him that his gaze could not detach itself 
from that of Jesus; he felt something marvelous tak- 
ing place in and around him. The sacred victim took 
on life, and in the outward silence he was aware of a 
voice speaking to him an ineffable language. Jesus 
accepted his oblation, and the heart of the poor soli- 
tary was already bathed in light and strength. This 
vision marked his triumph. His union with Christ 
was consummated; from that time he could exclaim, 
with the mystics of every age, " My beloved is mine, 
and I am his!" From that day the love which had 
triumphed in the crucified One became the very centre 
of his religious life, and, as it were, the soul of his 
soul. 

Thus must the vision of Christ's sacrificial love 



UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 87 

for men become incorporated in the being of every 
one who would fully enter into the fellowship of 
Christ's work for souls. This direct, intimate and 
enduring contact with Jesus is realized when belief 
rises into fait/i, that living and life-imparting faith 
which Vinet has so well defined: "To believe is to 
look; it is a serious, attentive and prolonged look; a 
look more simple than that of observation, a look which 
looks and nothing more; artless, infantine, it has all 
the soul in it; it is a look of the soul and not of the 
mind — a look which does not seek to analyze its object, 
but receives it as a whole into the soul through the 
eyes. 

This habitual look of the soul upon the Cruci- 
fied, this mysterious but sympathetic communion with 
the compassionate victim, will gradually impress, if 
not on hands and feet and side (as in St. Francis), 
yet on the heart and life of the preacher, the ' ' Stig- 
mata ' ' of self-renunciation and sacrifice which is the 
minister's ideal. The more we abide with Christ in 
the wilderness and mountains, and even in Gethsemane, 
the more will His divine manliness grow in us. We 
shall break away from narrow and outgrown models, 
become morally grand and strong, and move with free- 
dom and world-wide sympathies; the psychic energy 
of which we have spoken will become the natural life 
of our ministry, the outflow of pathos and power from 
every feature and faculty, from heart and voice and 
eye and hand, will reveal "a prince having power 
with God and men. ' ' 

Enter with me this humble monastery in Milan 



1 88 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 

and stand before this picture, which, after hundreds of 
years, still retains an infinite charm. While artists 
are copying and pilgrims are gazing, listen to the lesson 
of its origin. A great master conceived its design and 
prepared its outline, but under the burden of age de- 
cided to commit the work to a beloved pupil. The 
young artist, counting the work far beyond his talent 
and experience, cried: " I cannot, master; the work is 
too august, too high for my powers; no one but your- 
self could complete such a design. ' ' "I commit this 
work to thee, my son. Do thy best." 

To all the youth's protestation the old man's re- 
ply was: "Begin, my son, and do thy best." The 
youth, trembling but devout, prepared his palette and 
took the brush, and, kneeling before the appointed 
work, prayed: " It is for thy sake, beloved Master. I 
implore God for skill, patience and courage to perform 
the task thou hast given me. ' ' Then with swelling 
heart he began the work. From day to day the 
master viewed the work, bestowing cheer and counsel. 
The pupil's hand grew steadier, delight in his theme 
increased, slumbering genius stirred and woke in his 
soul, and fear was lost in reverent enthusiasm. At 
length the work was finished, and the master gazed 
upon it. Bursting into tears and embracing his pupil, 
he exclaimed: " My son, I paint no more! " 

Such is the tradition of ' ' The Last Supper, ' ' the 
masterpiece of that greatest of religious painters, Leo- 
nardo da Vinci. 

Oh, preacher of the Gospel! The Master has com- 
mitted to thy hand the sublime and yet simple work of 



UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 89 

reproducing His own life and mission in the world, and 
His own image upon the hearts of men. To all thy 
fears he answers, ' ' Do thy best, my son. ' ' Humbly and 
faithfully toiling under the great Master- Workman's 
eye, thy highest aspirations shall be more than realized 
in the fulfilment of that promise, "They that turn 
many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever 
and ever." 

THE END. 



By Joseph Spencer Kennard, A.M., PhJX 

ENTRO UN CERCHIO DI FERRO 

(In Italian) ♦ A study in psychology, 

CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN ROMANCE. 

A study of one hundred years of Italian fiction* 
(Vol. I in early issue.) 

ALASKA LEGENDS AND TOTEMS, 

as reflecting the origin, religion and customs of 
Alaska Indians. 

WHEN THE PRINTER'S ART WAS YOUNG. 
Early printers ; early colophons. 

THE FRIAR IN FICTION. 

A review of six centuries of the fictional friar, 
as presented by the great writers of Europe. 
(Vol. I in early issue.) 

THE FALLEN GOD. 

and other essays in literature, music and art. 

THE FANFARA OF THE BERSIGLIARY. 
And other stories of Italy. 

STUDI-DANTESCHI 

(In Italian). Studies in the Divine Comedy of Dante. 

MEMMO ; ONE OF THE PEOPLE. 

A novel of Italian Socialism and of the 
Florentine bread riots. 

DE DEO LAPSO COMMENTARIUS 

(In Latin). A study of Satan. In Press. 



& V-1&. 19qi 



i • '.- * 



